Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:10] Hello again, everyone.
[00:00:12] We're going to be back in Malachi, specifically in chapter two, verses 10 through 16 tonight.
[00:00:19] But before we dive into the Word, I want to steal a phrase from Tim and remind us all before we get into this, that this confrontation that we're seeing here in Malachi, or these condemnations are actually invitations, right? They are there to correct the people, to draw them back to righteousness.
[00:00:42] They're not just condemnation for condemnation's sake or to be mean. You know, remember that the invitation is for restoration.
[00:00:52] So not to skip ahead, but God is calling his people back to him. And he even says this explicitly later on in chapter three, where he says in Malachi, return to me and I will return to you.
[00:01:05] When God goes quiet, we know that's when we are in trouble.
[00:01:09] The Christian life isn't about perfection or never sinning.
[00:01:14] It's about never giving up on or celebrating sin.
[00:01:19] So don't let the enemy beat you up tonight as we go through this message. That's why I begin with that.
[00:01:24] It's a blessed thing to be called back by the Creator of all things.
[00:01:31] So let's briefly, we'll reset the context here of where we're at. Israel, right? They've been back in the promised land for a little while, for decades at this point. The temple has been rebuilt, sacrifices are again being offered.
[00:01:45] They feel like they're doing all the right things, all the right religious activities are being performed, but they're still under control of the Persian Empire at this point.
[00:01:58] And we know later on that they'll be under the control of the Roman Empire. And so they feel like they're drifting. They feel like God hasn't held up his part of the bargain. And so that's where we get into these disputations.
[00:02:10] They feel like God hasn't held up his word on restoring his people.
[00:02:18] This drifting results in lackluster offerings, corruption in the priests.
[00:02:25] And tonight we see it affects their relationships as well, especially in their marriage covenants.
[00:02:33] Israel wants all the benefits of their covenant with the Lord, but they don't want any of the responsibility.
[00:02:42] And this isn't just a problem in Israel either, but something that we see today with prosperity gospel culture, extreme legalism, even the counter swing of that towards progressive Christianity. It's easy to fall into this habit and just attend church, you know, even be helping with ministries, but have our hearts drift quietly from the Lord or worse, fall into contempt thinking God owes us something more.
[00:03:14] This spiritual drift can affect our relationships just as it did to the audience.
[00:03:21] The Prophet is speaking to which is in Judah.
[00:03:24] Our faithfulness to God is reflected in our faithfulness to our covenant promises that we have made in marriage.
[00:03:34] And unmarried folk out there too. Pay attention. I've got stuff for you too. I haven't forgotten about you. Just as those in the leadership positions. Last week we talked about there are lessons that we could learn from that. There are lessons that we can learn from this week too, even though a lot of the language is around the marriage covenant.
[00:03:51] All right, there were some strong words for the priests last week. Anybody remember? You know, faces covered in dung. Right. That stuck out to me.
[00:04:03] And this week, the Lord, he isn't mincing words either as he addresses the rest of his people.
[00:04:10] So we reach what's called the third disputation. Its focus is on the unfaithfulness in covenant relationships. And basically the prophet opens the passage tonight with a few questions.
[00:04:21] Well, two of the first questions are mostly rhetorical, but they're there to remind the nation of Israel who God is.
[00:04:29] You know, he's their creator, he's their father. But then he asks a brutal follow up question after that about why are they faithless?
[00:04:38] So my hope for this time tonight is not that we just see and think about Israel's unfaithfulness in the land of Judah at this time, but rather we see the faithfulness of God and see the heart of the Lord who confronts his people for a purpose, and that purpose being for restoration.
[00:04:57] So let's look together at the word of the Lord in Malachi, chapter two, starting in verse 10.
[00:05:06] Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?
[00:05:12] Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
[00:05:19] 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.
[00:05:36] 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.
[00:05:46] It doesn't stop there either. And then the second thing you do, 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.
[00:05:58] But you say, why does he not?
[00:06:01] 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.
[00:06:12] Did he not make them one with a portion of the Spirit in their union?
[00:06:17] And what was the one God seeking Godly offspring.
[00:06:22] So guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 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.
[00:06:41] So guard yourselves in the spirit and do not be faithless.
[00:06:46] Let's pray.
[00:06:48] Lord, thank you for your word.
[00:06:50] Just please let your spirit move tonight.
[00:06:54] Let us know of your loving hand and that just as we were singing that it's better for us to be one day in your course, Lord, than to be elsewhere. Help us to be grateful and gracious for that and to see those things and not to turn to foreign idols and gods and other things.
[00:07:11] In Jesus name we pray.
[00:07:13] All right, so that was an uplifting word, right?
[00:07:19] There's no dung on people's faces this time, so we've improved a little bit. But, man, there's. There's some hard words in there, you know, he calls them faceless, faithless. He calls them, saying that they're committing abominations, you know. And the prophet opens with these two questions that I mentioned earlier. And they're mostly rhetorical, right? And for rhetorical questions, those are questions that we ask where you're not really expecting an answer. A lot of times people will do them to make themselves feel kind of smart, you know, uppity.
[00:07:51] But what they're actually usually done for is for effect, right? You ask these questions not for an answer, but for an effect. So the prophet Malachi says, you know, have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? He knows the people that he's stressing. The people in Judah know this.
[00:08:09] These questions echo sentiment from earlier in Scripture, right? All the way back in Deuteronomy, which you can see on the screen behind me here, where they were similarly chastised at the same time, and they were reminded of who they are. More importantly, they were reminded of who God is.
[00:08:26] It says, do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people?
[00:08:30] Is not he your Father, who created you, who made you, who established you?
[00:08:36] So you can see this isn't the only place that rhetorical questions get used in the Bible. It's something that's used throughout Scripture. However, right after asking those first two questions, right? Seems pretty straightforward on those.
[00:08:48] What does he say he wants Israel? Why then are we faithless to one another, Profaning the covenant of our fathers, which is really intense wording. And we're going to talk about some of that word wording here, especially the Word faithless. Because the word faithless there has special meaning.
[00:09:14] This question isn't being asked because God doesn't know the answer. Right. And wants Israel to answer. This question is asked with personal purpose. That's to lead us and lead the people to self examination and repentance. Right. And that's a lesson that we can apply right now too. What is the Holy Spirit convicting you over?
[00:09:36] It's not purposeless, these convictions. You know, as is often said here at East Rock, when we face hard times.
[00:09:46] Well, at least as long as Tim tells me, anytime I complain about anything, perhaps this is for your sanctification.
[00:09:53] So that leads me to our first point tonight and something you shouldn't be surprised at all by at this point in our series in Malachi.
[00:10:04] But the first point is this. There is meaning behind this condemnation.
[00:10:10] It is an invitation to respond.
[00:10:16] There's meaning behind this condemnation.
[00:10:19] I use the word condemnation here instead of confrontation, which Tim had been using, because the wording here is very intense and is meant to be a condemnation on the way the people are acting and calling them to change.
[00:10:36] So how have the people been faithless?
[00:10:39] Why is Malachi saying this? Right, so we can see that the prophet assumes that the people of Judah would respond with a question, right? They'd say, if I come up to you and I'm like, yeah, you're faithless to one another. You profane the covenant of your fathers, you know, as an Israelite. I'm like, what do you mean? I'm going to the temple, I'm doing all the things. How am I profaning the covenant?
[00:11:03] And there are two ways that the commentaries that I read to kind of interpret this passage, you know, because the speaker goes on to explain that they profane the sanctuary of the Lord by marrying the daughter of a foreign God.
[00:11:20] So what's up with that? Right? So the first interpretation that is from this is that it could be a metaphor, right? And this is meant that to talk about how people themselves have just been gone and worshiping other gods and other idols, which could be true. There's nothing to really stand against that. But I do think in the context of this story, the second option here is much more. More likely is that we just take it literal, how it is actually said in the context. The daughter, you know, of the earlier metaphor was idolatry. But if we think in a literal interpretation, they literally are marrying women out of the Israelite tribe.
[00:12:06] And that's a problem.
[00:12:07] And. But why is it a problem? Right, we'll get into that. You know, if we look at. And why I think it's a literal translation is because the book of Ezra spans a lot of time, Right. And it's actually the end of Ezra is even contemporary to where we're kind of at in Malachi.
[00:12:24] So we know In Ezra, chapter 10, verses 1 through 3, it lets us know that this was a problem that was common in Israel at the time.
[00:12:33] It says while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women and children gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly.
[00:12:50] And Shekoniah, the son of Jehiel.
[00:12:54] Yeah, we're gonna go with that. Of the sons of Elam addressed Ezra. We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land.
[00:13:02] But even now, there is hope for Israel in spite of this.
[00:13:06] Therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children according to the counsel of my Lord and those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law.
[00:13:20] So, man. Yeah, so Ezra also saw a problem with this intermarrying of foreign wives. But is it just like racism? Right. That's not what's happening here. There's a separate meaning for this. So Ezra spans quite a bit of time. And at the end of Ezra, you know, like I said, it's about the same time that we'd be seeing a prophet, Malachi. So the literal interpretation lines up that they could be marrying foreign women is what they're trying to address in this passage. You know, what we're talking about, though, isn't about, like, xenophobia or racism or ethnic purity, anything like that. You know, get that out of your head. None of that's what's going on here.
[00:13:58] What he is concerned about, what the Lord is concerned about and what the prophecy prophet is reminding us and the people of Israel is about covenant purity.
[00:14:11] You know, the worry.
[00:14:13] This is laid out in Deuteronomy where it says why?
[00:14:17] Why the Lord is concerned with Israel intermarrying with different peoples? It doesn't have to be that Israel's better than the other people or anything. It has to do that he's worried that they will get led astray. You know, In Deuteronomy, chapter 7, it tells us, when the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering, to take possession of and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.
[00:14:43] Seven nations more numerous and mightier than you. And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, you must devote to them complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy on them. You shall not. This is the important part here where it says they shall not intermarry with them. Giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons. But why? It continues and it says, for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods.
[00:15:13] The worry isn't that we must preserve the bloodlines, right? The worry is that marrying these daughters of foreign gods would lead the people astray.
[00:15:24] They would lead them away from worshiping the one true God to worshiping something false.
[00:15:31] This is echoed in Exodus as well. But you know, I'm not going to go down there right now, because if we got to go there, as Tim says, we got to go there.
[00:15:41] So what covenant are we talking about in this covenant of unfaithfulness? What covenant have they profaned?
[00:15:52] A covenant, as we all know, is. Hopefully we all know, if you've been here since we've been going through Genesis, we talked about covenants quite a bit. But if you don't know it's a promise between two people that's meant to be unbreakable. And usually that covenant is taken before the Lord. So he's also involved in that agreement.
[00:16:10] So it's very important, it's very a big deal for you to make a covenant.
[00:16:15] But a covenant is an oath between us and it's meant to be unbreakable between the people and God.
[00:16:21] We see this in the covenant God makes with Abraham in Genesis. Although that's a one sided covenant because God is the only one with any type of stipulation there, which is good because Abraham did some sketchy stuff, if you remember.
[00:16:36] And what I mean by that is God is the one making the promise, right? It's not contingent on Abraham's actions.
[00:16:42] The Lord is faithful in his covenant promise to Abraham to make of him a great nation, right? To give him the lands of Canaan.
[00:16:50] For, you know, he. He tells him that his descendants will be like the sand, you know, or like the stars. They will be so meant, so numerous.
[00:17:00] I think here though, this could be talking about the Abrahamic covenant, but I think it's more likely the covenant in question is the Mosaic covenant that was made at Sinai.
[00:17:10] And there was a big part of that. Does anybody remember what the big part of the Mosaic covenant Is it's something you learn in like Sunday school type stuff, right? Like, it's the Ten Commandments.
[00:17:25] Yeah. It wasn't a trick question or anything. It's the Ten Commandments.
[00:17:29] Those are part. Those are from the Mosaic covenant, for they were made at Mount Sinai.
[00:17:33] And what's the first commandment that the Lord makes?
[00:17:40] Yeah, right. You shall have no other gods besides me. Like, so that we can see the issue of idolatry and worship and other gods is a very serious issue. Right. God takes it seriously. It's the first command he gives of the Ten Commandments. And the word that is being translated as faithless here in the esv, it can also be translated as treacherous or deceitful.
[00:18:06] It's the Hebrew word bage, kind of like a French baguette, but with a D, which I think makes sense in light of verse 12. Why they use this word? Because it says those who bring offerings, they're basically. They're not doing it honestly.
[00:18:26] They might be bringing an offering to the temple, but they're really worshiping other gods. They're not being true with their heart in their actions to what they're doing and following the Lord. They're just doing it out of habit almost.
[00:18:43] And as such, you know, as they're worshiping these other gods, but still pretending to worship the Lord, the penalty is severe. As we see, it talks about them being cut off from the people.
[00:18:59] And we see that God doesn't take the breaking of covenants lightly. Which is our second point for tonight, that the breaking of a covenant promise is not a thing to be taken lightly.
[00:19:14] The breaking of that covenant promise is not a thing to be taken lightly. It's very serious.
[00:19:19] You know, we've talked about the idea of sin in general being this I.
[00:19:24] This idea of like cosmic treason almost against the Lord, our Creator. And it's not to be something to be taken lightly either. But this covenant breaking leads to this. The penalty for it is the idea is being cut off from the people. It's not. And this isn't even a new idea. This isn't the only place in scripture where it talks about this. It talks about this way back in Leviticus and Leviticus 19. It talks about how those. When people, when they make a tainted offering before the Lord should be cast out.
[00:19:54] So this isn't new language to the people of Judah and Israel. They're very familiar with this command that they should be not half hearted in their offering.
[00:20:08] Now, a moment of application here real quick.
[00:20:13] How often do we offer our best to The Lord, that this reiterates some of the lessons from last week's sermon, right? Tim's example was praying before a meal. You guys remember, we just do it out of habit, and you say, thank you, Lord. I just remember Tim talking about Asian food and smelling it really good.
[00:20:37] But it's the same thing, right? Like, are we really being thankful to the Lord, or are we just doing something out of habit, checking that box to say that we've done the thing? And that hit me really hard last week, if you don't know a ton about my backstory or if you're a guest or anything. I was raised Catholic, and there prayers are very scripted, right? In the Catholic Church. Like, you don't have to talk to God. You just go and open a book and it tells you what to say word for word, all the way through, which is very helpful, but from an aspect of not thinking.
[00:21:15] It was so weird to me when I was first saved that I could just talk to God without a formal script.
[00:21:24] And that still blows my mind these days. But why I bring that up is because I still stumble in prayer, because it always seems like my words are not enough, you know, Nor do I want to be very careful not to just be, like, flowery in my prayer to make myself look good or anything, you know, like, the Pharisees were called out for that.
[00:21:46] I don't want to put on a show to make myself look good. But anyways, I don't want to sidetrack the issue. And that is why, you know, one of the areas that it's hard for me to offer my best to the Lord, because I'll fall into that trap of just knowing what I'm going to say and saying it over and over and over and over again. You know, one of the things that we pray with my son every night, we always talk about what we're thankful for, for the day.
[00:22:14] Because I want to create this attitude of gratitude to rhyme in him. But basically, I want him to be thankful for the things that the Lord has done. And a lot of times we'll go through the list and it'll end up being the same type of stuff. You know, thank you for mom, thank you for dad, thank you for Daniel, thank you for a cat, thank you for our home, our beds.
[00:22:37] And it just kind of becomes rote. Like, it just becomes repetitive. And so that's one way that, you know, I'm preaching to myself here when I say this, right? Like, it's easy for me to fall into habit with prayer and not Be meaningful and not give it as a true offering of my whole heart to the Lord, you know, and that can be with praying, that can be with reading the Bible, you know, and that could be with volunteering or helping with ministry.
[00:23:09] All of those things are good, right? Praying, reading the Bible, helping others. Good stuff, right? We all agree.
[00:23:15] Cool. Yeah. But the actions of physically doing those things are less important than the relationship building that occurs with the Lord. Right. When we read our Bible, it should be to. For us to learn to align our minds with Him. So prayer helps us align our minds with God.
[00:23:36] Reading His Word, helps us to hear his voice and know what he's telling us.
[00:23:41] Volunteering is just taking action on those things.
[00:23:45] So let's be diligent and intentional in doing these things and not have them just be being done because we've been doing them for a while.
[00:23:56] Don't let them be these tainted offerings before the Lord, because God takes them serious. God takes these things very seriously.
[00:24:06] So we jump down a little bit in verse 13, you know, it talks about the offering some more and it says the second thing you do, you know, you. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning, because he no longer accepts the offering or accepts it with faith favor from your hand.
[00:24:26] The.
[00:24:27] The Lord no longer accepts their offerings.
[00:24:32] They're still bringing them, right? They're still showing up to temple, bringing their offerings, doing what they should be doing, but their heart's not in it.
[00:24:40] And God rejects it. He rejects their offerings.
[00:24:44] And this is because God cares not just about the physical act of obedience.
[00:24:48] While important, the physical act of obedience is important, but also our heart posture that we take in our offerings is equally as important to that.
[00:25:02] There's a whole sub sermon here that I had to cut out.
[00:25:06] I was talking with Tim last night. He's like, how's your sermon going? And I was like, I'm going to have to cut some things out. So hopefully we don't go too long. And I cut enough things out. But one of the things I wanted to talk about that I will just mention very briefly here is about the difference between repentance versus sorrow or remorse. You know, I just say that repentance is a turning of our heart to come in alignment with the will of God.
[00:25:29] It's not feeling sorry for what we've done, right?
[00:25:34] We see here that Israel is crying on their altar, right? But they aren't changing their worship. They're still worshiping these foreign gods.
[00:25:43] That's why God rejects their offering, because he knows that it's not true.
[00:25:50] The example, basically, that comes to mind when we think of this, right.
[00:25:56] As we start to broach the subject, because he talks very specifically about marriage here. Very next, you know, this idea of infidelity occurring is that, you know, Israel is. Is crying and offering, but then they're still going on and cheating on the Lord, right? It's like Israel comes up and, you know, is offering flowers to their wife while still going out and committing adultery, right? That isn't repentance.
[00:26:25] That would mean you would turn from the sin.
[00:26:28] You don't continue on in it.
[00:26:31] So our third point tonight is just this, is that God doesn't just want our flowers.
[00:26:38] He wants our faithfulness, which man?
[00:26:44] And we talk about having our whole heart turn back to God. 1st Samuel 7:3 is where I get that from. It talks about how you should turn from idolatry. Right? And it's not just this act of turning, but it says, if you are returning to the Lord with your heart or with all of your heart, rather, then put away the foreign gods and the Asheroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only.
[00:27:12] God wants our wholehearted devotion.
[00:27:17] And we're unable to do that when we won't let go of our idols.
[00:27:24] They compete with the Lord.
[00:27:27] There's so much more to be said, but I haven't even gotten into starting talking about marriage yet, so let's press on. So that way we're not here all night. Okay, so the prophet goes on to explain how these offerings are tainted. Right. Specifically in this instance, it says, because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth whom you have been faithless. That word faithless again is bagad.
[00:27:56] Baged. Sorry, baged.
[00:27:59] Where? It's very specific here.
[00:28:04] From the earlier Mosaic covenant to the covenant of marriage. Right. He was talking in general about the Mosaic covenant earlier, and now he's moving the conversation and talking more about the specific covenant of marriage.
[00:28:16] And this isn't just about having a wife that would lead you astray, but rather he's speaking to the husband here about leaving his wife and breaking the covenant that the Lord's Spirit, it says, has brought together.
[00:28:32] What can we draw from that?
[00:28:35] The first thing that we can draw from that is that God cares deeply about marriage.
[00:28:40] There are some translations, and pastors, even when you look at this, that they will take this passage and they'll just say, God hates divorce and it should never be allowed.
[00:28:55] Some translations literally do translate it as saying at the bottom that God hates Divorce, God's plan. So I want to speak on that briefly, is that God's plan is not for divorce. Correct.
[00:29:07] But I think if we look throughout Scripture, we see law, the law for a divorce. But more importantly, I see in the New Testament, in Matthew 19, you know, it lets us know Jesus specifically says that divorce was allowed because of our hardness of heart. Heart. The Pharisees challenge him on why we allow divorce.
[00:29:27] And like, I come from a family with divorced parents and I know others who, who have been divorced due to various causes, infidelity, abuse, etc. You know, so hear me when I'm not saying I, I'm not saying divorce is, is never warranted. What I am saying is that it's allowed due to our fallen state, but it's not God's will.
[00:29:51] Right? It's allowed out of compassion to us.
[00:29:56] And that goes all the way back in Deuteronomy 24. You know, there's civil regulations around divorce, just as there are regulations around having slaves. Just because God is able to use a broken system and something of this world doesn't mean that he endorses or acknowledges it. Right? He can use things that are bad for good.
[00:30:17] God can use broken systems to accomplish his means.
[00:30:24] But contextually, you know, what's being said here is a specific condemnation of the men who have divorced their Israelite wives and married pagan women. We don't know the reason they did this. Scripture doesn't tell us their motives, but it lets us know clearly their motives were not in serving the Lord.
[00:30:44] Divorcing the wife of your youth is but a symptom of this larger problem.
[00:30:50] The root issue here is unfaithfulness to God.
[00:30:55] The word again bagehed.
[00:30:58] And it specifically applies to like a legal or a covenant breaking act of treachery or deceitfulness.
[00:31:06] It's not just hurting somebody's feelings.
[00:31:09] It's the language of, of a treasonous or traitorous act.
[00:31:14] It's not limited to adultery or abandonment either. It could also refer to any type of mistreatment, physical, emotional, spiritual abuse.
[00:31:24] It's a call against any form of cruelty.
[00:31:28] In the ancient world, a husband was responsible for his wife's protection and stability.
[00:31:33] To violate that by abandoning her, mistreating her or replacing her, was to commit baged treachery.
[00:31:45] This is why God takes it so seriously.
[00:31:49] The wife of their youth, the woman who shared their poverty, their struggles, their early years, has now just been discarded. For women from pagan households who represent foreign worship, foreign loyalties and foreign gods, it's betrayal on two levels against their wife and against their God.
[00:32:13] But what can we take away from that?
[00:32:17] He's talking specifically to Israel, right? Like he's not talking to Steve right now. Right now, he's talking to the people of Israel at the time this letter was written. But I think what we can learn from how God addresses this situation is our fourth final point. Think final point tonight. Covenant faithfulness to each other is meant to show us covenant faithfulness with God. The two are related, right?
[00:32:45] How we treat our spouse reflects how we treat the covenant we had made of marriage.
[00:32:52] Are we to be covenant keepers? Or instead, are we to be covenant breakers?
[00:32:57] The people of Judah at this time, they were mistreating their spouses and yet still trying to perform the basic rituals at the temple.
[00:33:06] And God let them know that that wasn't going to fly.
[00:33:10] That was not acceptable because he knew where their hearts lie.
[00:33:16] He won't acknowledge offerings that are for show only when your actions reveal your real heart.
[00:33:22] You know, I'd be remiss to Skip over verse 15 here, where it says, there's so much to be said here about covenant of marriage. But I want to focus on this phrase right here where it talks about godly offspring, because I thought that was a weird phrase, right? It's not used a ton in scripture. What is actually being talked about when he says godly offspring? This basically is just letting us know that the covenant of marriage, the reason that God wants, you know, the man and wife to be equally yoked and to be followers of the Lord together is so that way they can raise up children in covenant faithfulness.
[00:34:03] You know, that mirrors in the Great Commission that work to go and make disciples, not just in the world, but in our homes.
[00:34:12] This is a call specifically for parents that we're called to teach our children who the Lord is church. The church teaching should supplement what is being taught at home. It shouldn't be their main source of consumption about Jesus, about the Lord. It should reiterate what has already been taught in the home.
[00:34:37] But this takes it to a practical level as well. On top of that, our actions, you know, as parents in the room. For those of us that are and even those of us that aren't parents, our actions speak very loudly to how we think about God. If we don't practice what we preach, our children see that as parents, the same thing happens to us. If you are in any type of leadership or ministry position, people look at how you act, how you respond.
[00:35:08] You know, the Bible tells us that not many should become teachers because they'd be judged more harshly. But then we're also all told to go and make disciples.
[00:35:19] So there's tension there that we're called to teach and to grow and make disciples. But at the same time, we need to be careful, very careful about that, in how we act around others. But again, as I said earlier, nobody's going to be perfect. I am far, far removed from perfect.
[00:35:44] Far. Again, I cannot reiterate that enough.
[00:35:48] But, you know, any ministry, with children or without, in any ministry, any disciple making activity, our actions speak so loudly, sometimes louder than even the words that we were using.
[00:36:03] You know, we were just talking a little bit about this actually over. And we were on the Pine Street House for rock solid, and we were just finishing up Colossians.
[00:36:10] And, you know, we were talking about authentic ministry and how what that looks like. Because Paul basically ends the chapter by listing out a bunch of different people's names. So we struggled through this list of like 10 different, really, you know, Greek, Hebrew names.
[00:36:27] But it was basically him introducing his ministry team. And one of the things that we took away was like, you know, we should surround ourselves by people that we trust in our ministry, but also how we act will reflect on those people around in our ministry as well.
[00:36:45] So sometimes our words, or I'm sorry, sometimes our words are loud, but our actions are louder.
[00:36:56] I know a lot of people avoid church because they see hypocrisy when I talk with my family, because not all of them are believers.
[00:37:06] That's one of their biggest complaints, right? When I talk about God and being a Christian and yeah, we all make mistakes, but we can repent from those.
[00:37:18] We must repent. When we do those mistakes, we must turn again to God, right? As it says in First Samuel, we turn again wholeheartedly to God and show our love for him that flows out of what he has done for us.
[00:37:32] So what has he done for us?
[00:37:34] You know, God, what have you done for me lately?
[00:37:38] Seems to be the idea that a lot of people take, and I take sometimes, too. I'll sit there and I'll be like, man, I'm just really struggling this week, Lord, I don't know what you're doing, and I still don't.
[00:37:52] You know, today was an interesting day for me. It was very busy as I was finishing up preparing for this sermon. I was very excited to preach on it, but I was like, lord, I don't know what you're doing, but you're doing something.
[00:38:07] You know, we have to turn again to God and show our love for Him.
[00:38:11] What has he done for us? It's not what has he done for us lately, but it's that he came fully man and fully God in the person of Jesus Christ, you know, who lived and died a sinless life to pay for our own transgressions. Again, you know, we talk about the worship songs that we were singing were about, you know, what God has done, how gracious he is, how righteous he is. And this is why, because of him sending his son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us.
[00:38:44] There's no greater thing to be done than to give your own life for other.
[00:38:49] You know, and today I'm sitting there grumbling, right? That's what I. How. How easily do I forget that feeling of love from God as I go through my week Sunday, I gotta get through all this stuff because I got work again on Monday. You know, I should be grateful for what God has given me. God has given me the opportunity to speak before you all. He's given me his word.
[00:39:10] He's blessed me with a job that allows me to take care of my family.
[00:39:15] Where does all this grumbling come from?
[00:39:19] I pray for that to stick with us as we guide our reactions and our relationships throughout this week.
[00:39:24] Okay, I see the time, so real quick.
[00:39:30] I listed applications earlier above, but I want to take a moment to reiterate just a few. Remember that the prophet opens this section by reminding the people, via those rhetorical questions right where they're coming from.
[00:39:43] So we need to understand who we are and who made us.
[00:39:47] So this week, in addition to that, I want to be diligent to reflect. I want you to reflect on your heart and what foreign gods or idols are in control. There could be things like security, comfort.
[00:40:03] One that I hadn't thought of, but that I saw in a commentary mentioned specifically was autonomy, which is, you know, basically the idea that I can do everything myself.
[00:40:14] I struggle with that one a lot. I don't like asking for help.
[00:40:18] And I think a lot of that has to do with it leads into the idol. That's. The approval of man is a struggle. So, you know, let's look at these things. Let's examine our hearts and see where we can turn, turn them back to wholeheartedly to the Lord.
[00:40:34] And then next, recall that repentance is not required. Or I'm sorry, recall that repentance is required, not just religious acts. You know, I know we just had Academy day. We talked about the Reformation. You know, one of the sacraments in the Catholic Church is confession. Sounds like a Good thing, right?
[00:40:54] But we should be faithful to confess our sins.
[00:40:57] But so much of that, and this was, even when I was Catholic, it was just an act of doing the religious activity, right? Like, you go in the confessional, you say prayer and you walk out.
[00:41:08] I'm good to go, sin is forgiven, and then I'll just go commit it again, because I can just go back in the confessional next week and same deal, say a couple Hail Marys and be on my way.
[00:41:22] No, that's not what God wants us to do. He doesn't want us just to do these religious acts. He wants our hearts to turn.
[00:41:31] And then lastly, Malachi is addressing the whole people of Israel, right? This is a corporate concern, so we should be an example to others in our congregation and community where we can see that covenant love is normal.
[00:41:45] And there's so much in this passage. I urge you all to go to a Life Together group this week so you can discuss the passage further.
[00:41:51] If you're not part of a Life Together group, we have one that meets every weeknight now, so that's exciting.
[00:41:57] And you're welcome to come to my home on Friday if you're not part of one. And you can join us there where we'll talk about this. We have food that's usually pretty tasty. And then time in the Word.
[00:42:08] In closing, remember that Malachi is confronting covenant unfaithfulness.
[00:42:16] But remember that that condemnation, that confrontation, is an invitation.
[00:42:21] This rebuke is meant to call the people of Israel, to call them back, to call us back, to heal what has been broken, to restore that relationship.
[00:42:31] God has done that work in Christ. God has made a new covenant, sealed in his blood on the cross, that atones for our sins that we might be restored in relationship with him.
[00:42:44] Just as he calls for the people of Judah to turn back to him from their foreign gods in Malachi's day.
[00:42:50] You know, and if you have questions about that, as I'm always, as I've said before and will continue to say, if you have questions or you want to know more, find me after the service. I'm happy to talk about it. I am super awkward, but always willing to talk about Jesus. So lastly, I just want to call us back again to that verse from first Samuel. If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods, the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve him only.
[00:43:28] The Lord wants our whole heart.
[00:43:30] He doesn't want us to pursue him half heartedly. You know, let us return with our whole hearts to covenant loyalty with him.
[00:43:38] Let us do that in our hearts, but also see it in our actions, and let that reflect in our relationships and in our marriages.
[00:43:48] Let's pray.
[00:43:50] Lord, thank you for your word, God. Thank you for what your son Jesus has done on the cross for us.
[00:43:58] God, I just confess that I don't always follow you wholeheartedly. I seek to do things myself. I seek things of the world.
[00:44:05] I confess, Lord, of this shortcoming. I just pray that you know not just the people here, but myself. I'm preaching to myself that we turn wholeheartedly to you.
[00:44:20] I turn wholeheartedly into you, Lord, and trust in you in the work that you've done on the cross.
[00:44:27] Let me not seek after foreign gods. Let me not seek after other idols, but seek after you with all of my heart.
[00:44:33] In Jesus name, amen.
