True Distinction - Malachi 3:16-4:3

Greeting

I am thankful for Torrey jaspers last week, visiting us and faithfully bringing God’s word to us.

I heard a lot of positive feedback about that sermon and I also heard from Torrey and his wife Kymberly so much positive feedback about harvest.

I know they were blessed in their time here and I know we were blessed by their time here, as Torrey preached from Malachi 3.

Let’s all turn in our Bibles to Malachi 3, where we will pick up in v. 13 as we near the end of our series in Malachi.

As a reminder, this series is called Worship Confronted because God is confronting his people with their distorted, false worship of him and he is calling them back to true worship.

And a consistent theme in this book has been that God has accusations to bring against the people, and the people question the validity of God's claim.

But God doesn’t humor them and tolerate their questioning - He holds them accountable to the charge he brings against them.

This should be instructive for us.

You have one of two options when it comes to what God says.

You can either accept it as true and conform your thinking, and your life to those words

Or you can question the truth and ultimately reject the truth so that you don't have to change your mind or your life.

There is no scenario in which you can enjoy the benefits of God while questioning and disregarding his word.

As I was prepping this week this idea made think of a phrase that we use in our home - “Choose your hard.”

There are two things you want, you can only have one, and letting the other go is hard.

It’s hard to do homework. Its also hard to fail and repeat a grade. Choose your hard.

You can’t skip your homework and also excel in school. You can’t have both. Choose your hard.

It is hard to be disciplined and eat healthy. It is also hard to be unhealthy because you weren’t disciplined. Choose your hard.

It’s hard to practice a sport or an instrument. It is also hard to not play because you didn’t practice. Choose your hard.

What is beneath this phrase is the truth that you cannot possibly have both things that you want.

You can’t have it easy and also have the thing that comes from hard work.

You have to pick one and in doing so you let the other one go.

So what are we encouraging one another to do?

We're encouraging one another to make a distinction between two things

To identify what is good for us and what is not and to pursue the right thing.

And so the title of this morning's message is true distinction because God is going to show his people the way to distinguish between what is good and right and what is ultimately not good for them.

But I fear that as Christians in 2024, we have not been taught how to distinguish between the good and the bad.

We live in a society that has so emphasized what people want to be true that we have removed any kind of distinction between what is true and false and act as if everyone can just have it their way.

And if we are not careful, church family, we will do the same

Rather than being capable of making distinctions between what is good and what is not, what should be embraced and what should be rejected, we will remove distinctions and simply talk in broad categories of acceptance.

Entire church denominations and networks have made the decision to no longer speak of sin, God’s wrath, hell, or anything like that.

No longer making the distinctions that the Gospel itself makes.

But our passage this morning makes clear that there are distinctions that God makes and we should make them too.

And so we need these words in Malachi 3:13-4:3 so that we can make true distinctions and in so doing live lives of true worship as a church family.

So let’s give these words our full attention.

Malachi 3:13–4:3 ESV

“Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’ ” Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. “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.

These are God’s words for his people, both to them back then and to us today.

Big idea: God’s people must be motivated by God’s pleasure, not human prosperity [10:00]

The people are looking around and saying,

“People who do evil prosper - So maybe that is actually a better life than what we are experiencing

Look at how much money they have and look at how hard our lives are - Maybe this whole devotion to God thing isn’t all its cracked up to be.

Maybe we should just live like them.”

And God confronts this because his people should be motivated by pleasing him, glorifying him, regardless of what that means for their earthly wealth.

And it is true for us today as well.

Now, I want to make clear at the outset that there is nothing wrong with prospering - God by his grace does allow his people to enjoy material wealth at times

What is wrong is to diminish and ignore God’s standard and commands in the name of pursuing prosperity in the human sense.

God is confronting prosperity as if his people should live in poverty - He is confronting our priority structure

When prosperity is the priority, I am wrong, because earthly wealth is temporary.

When God’s pleasure is the priority, I do well, because God’s pleasure is out eternal purpose.

[Bridge] So, what pleases God? What does God say is good in his eyes that is different from what the world says we should be motivated by?

We are going to see three distinctions in this passage of what pleases God and what doesn’t.

And we would do well as a church family to see it God’s way and make the same distinctions so that we can be confident that we are pleasing God in our thoughts, words, motives, and actions.

I please God when:

I Persevere in His Service, even when it costs me (3:13-14) [12:00]

The reality is that because the world does not seek to honor God, honoring God won’t be profitable in a worldly sense.

In fact, it will often be costly from a human perspective.

It can cost you your income, your relationships, your reputation.

Serving God can even cost you your life.

But when we desire to be faithful, to persevere in our serving of God, it pleases God, which is exceedingly more valuable than any worldly benefit I might receive.

But the people of Israel, don't see it this way.

I want you to first notice what God says about their words

Malachi 3:13 ““Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’”

That phrase “How have we spoken against you?” carries the image of conversations.

These aren't just words offered up in frustration in a moment. These are ongoing conversations between the people.

And God says that their words have actually been against him, not just between one another.

Listen: How we talk about God and our lives communicates volumes about what actually motivates us.

And when i am motivated by God’s pleasure, I will speak in a way that honors God, regardless of my circumstances.

But if I am motivated by human prosperity, and I don’t get it, I will talk negatively about God.

So how do we see this play out in these verses?

The people make two claims:

Claim #1: It doesn’t pay to serve God

Malachi 3:14 “It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?”

Just a reminder - We talked about this in ch. 2 - that word vain means “cheap” - It is of no value to serve God

They are essentially saying, “We have doing all the things God says to do, offering sacrifices, walking around in mourning, as a sign of our repentance, it isn’t benefiting us, so it must be worthless.”

When you value worldly wealth and possessions more than pleasing God, you will serve God only when it brings you the thing you want more

When serving him doesn’t benefit you in a worldly way, you’ll stop serving him, because “what’s the point?”

which leads to their second claim

Claim #2: It does pay to disobey God

Malachi 3:15 “And now [From now on] we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’ ”

We give our offerings and aren't rich, but our neighbors who don't give any money are rich.

We do everything you ask, but we're struggling to even make ends meet.

People who don’t follow God seem to be doing great!

I guess if you really wanna get ahead in life, it's better to live like them then to live like what God says.

Because God doesn’t seem to care.

Have you ever been there? Have you ever looked around and thought “Does it actually benefit me to follow God?”

It feels like the more I follow him, the harder life gets

It seems like the people who have it the best are the ones who don’t follow God

Maybe it would be better to just live like them.

If we are all being honest, I think all of us have been there.

But we have to be honest that when we are tempted to think that way, it is because what is ultimately motivating us is the worldly benefit.

Instead, when we are motivated by God’s pleasure, we will see serving him as a benefit in itself

I get to please God by serving him, even when it is costly.

How would your daily decisions change if they were motivated by pleasing God rather than by attaining human profit and benefit?

What decisions are you making in your life that are motivated by what you see in other people’s lives?

And how would those decisions be different if the motivation was pleasing God by serving him?

We have to make the distinction between serving God and pursuing earthly prosperity, because we can’t have both

That is why Jesus said you cannot serve two masters - You will either serve God or money

Or to put it another way: You can serve God with what you have or you serve what you have as your God.

So that is the first distinction.

The second distinction, God is pleased when:

I Rest in His Approval, even when the world overlooks me (3:16-18) [18:00]

Let’s be honest - We want approval.

Sure, some people will say that they don’t care what other people think

Yes, you do - that statement alone is meant to cause people to think something about you.

So you really do care what they think - You just want to make sure that they think that you don’t care.

The actual question that we should be asking is, “Whose approval do I care about?”

But we run into a problem when we are motivated by the approval of the world or the approval of those who do not fear God.

When this is our motivation - Two things happen

First, we live in constant fear and anxiety about getting it wrong

In our cultural mood, right and wrong is constantly changing and so you are constantly in danger of being on the “wrong side” of an issue.

So fear is the constant state of your life.

Second, because of that fear, we will invariably approve of things and participate in things that are clearly sinful in God’s sight,

but because we are motivated by human prosperity and so we compromise on God’s standards.

But when we make the distinction between that and being motivated by God’s pleasure we can rest in his approval

Not living in fear, but resting

Not living in constant change, but knowing that right and wrong do not change because God does not change.

So rather than seeking approval from culture and living in fear, we can seek approval from God and live in rest.

v. 16-18 interjects a narrative into the book.

Malachi steps back from the interaction between God and his people and essentially comments on what happens as a result of God’s confrontation with his people.

Malachi 3:16 “Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.”

Those who feared the Lord, those who were still devoted to him in a society that isn’t.

In the same way that the people in versus 13 through 15 had been conversing with one another about how pointless it was to serve God, those who still were devoted to God conversed with one another.

But rather than profaning God’s name by saying untrue things about him, they esteemed his name, it says at the end of v. 16

This should confront all of us this morning about how we talk with one another about life, about sin, about holiness, and about God.

Do we speak with one another in a way that reveals that we fear the LORD? Do we esteem his name with one another?

Do we talk in a way the communicates that we care about God's approval and pleasing him?

Or do we talk in a way that really reveals that what we want is to be approved by our peers, and by the world, and those who do not fear God?

But let’s not miss this - When the whole society has decided that it is better to leave God’s commands for the pursuit of worldly gain, God is pleased when the remnant choose to not go along with the rest.

The world will overlook us and say, “You’re so backwards. You’re so close-minded”

We will say, “Now, we are resting God’s approval, not the world’s approval.”

And what is it about God’s approval that allows us to respond that way?

Three things we see

God notices his people - v. 16b

We are told in v. 16 that “a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.”

Malachi is giving us a view behind the curtain into the presence of God.

He is telling us that God saw those who feared him in distinction to those who did not, and God essentially documented who it was who was faithful to him.

This was actually a common practice at this time in the Persian empire. If you remember back to Esther ch. 6 When the king couldn't sleep, and he asked that the scroll of remembrance be brought to him so that he could have read to him all of the things that were done that were praiseworthy in his kingdom.

Kings would do this so that they did not forget the people who were faithful in their service

And God, as the supreme king of all the earth, is showing how he responds to the faithfulness of those who fear him - He notices it.

He does not record their names because he might forget.

The imagery is that he will not forget

He saw their faithfulness and he made note of it.

He sees - He notices - He approves - He won’t forget you.

When you choose to esteem God’s name by living for his pleasure, rather than material gain, God sees it.

When you make the decision to oppose things in culture that are evil, God sees it.

When you feel like you are the only one who cares about honoring God in you life and you still seek his pleasure, God sees it.

Where do you feel forgotten in life right now?

In what ways have you been trying to honor God in your life and it feels like the world is overlooking you?

Where have you lost the respect fo your peers or your family because you have remained faithful to God?

Where have you been passed over for opportunities because you wouldn’t bow to culture?

God sees it - He notices you and your faithfulness - He will not forget it.

And you can rest knowing that while your faithfulness to him likely won’t result in prosperity, but it certainly results in God’s pleasure in you.

Next,

God treasures and protects his people - 17

Malachi 3:17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession…”

God uses this language of the people in Exodus 19:5 “you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples”

And then Peter picks this up in 1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…”

What is God saying here?

When we belong to him and rest in his approval, we are treasured in his sight. He calls us chosen, holy, and dearly loved.

He welcomes us into his family, adopts us as sons and daughters, gives us a full inheritance.

When you are overlooked by the world because you are motivated by God’s pleasure, you can know that God treasures you

And because he treasures us, he also protects us, spares us

Malachi 3:17 “…and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.”

The word there is that he shows us compassion - He protects us from the punishment that we deserve

Like the Father welcoming home the prodigal son, he doesn’t hold our past against us, but he runs to us, embraces us, clothes us in his righteousness.

The world won’t do that for you - But God does when you rest in his approval

Where in life have you wished that someone would notice you?

Where have you been pursuing approval from others?

When you rest in God’s approval, you don’t have to look anywhere else, because you can know that you are treasured and protected by God.

And the third reason we can rest…

God distinguishes his people - 18

I want you to notice that those who fear God respond to his word - Those who don’t, don’t.

Are you tracking with me?

When God’s word confront his people, you find out who really belongs to him and who doesn’t

Because those who truly belong to God, who are indwelt by his Spirit, they hear his word, they heed his word, and they respond to his word.

God makes very clear in v. 18 that the distinction of who belong to him and who do not is not in what people say, but in how they live.

Righteous = Those who serve God

Wicked = Those who do not

This does not mean that what you do earns God’s approval - It means that what you do reveals that you already belong to him and so are motivated by his approval.

Saving faith is not the product of living according to God’s commands - Instead living according to God’s commands is the product of saving faith.

And God is telling his people that his distinction between who is his and who is not is found in their motivation for how they live

Here that: The mark of the people of God is found in their motivation for life, and God makes that distinction very clear

Because God distinguishes his people, we also must make distinctions about our own lives so that we can make sure we are living as his people, according to his commands.

We have to make distinctions about what and who we should and shouldn’t be listening to

We have to make distinctions about what we should and shouldn’t be following on social media

We have to make distinctions about what we should and shouldn’t be valuing and how we should and shouldn’t be speaking

We have to make these distinctions so that we can be confident that our lives are truly motivated by God’s pleasure and can rest in his approval.

Knowing that he notices his people, he treasures his people, he protects his people, and he distinguishes his people.

So those are the first two distinctions

I persevere in his service

I rest in his approval

And lastly, God is pleased when:

I Trust in his promises, even when the world tempts me (4:1-3) [32:00]

The reality is that things DO seem to be going well for the wicked and so it is tempting to live like them so that you can enjoy the same temporary, worldly benefits

But God’s promises point to an eternal reality that makes the temporary benefit of giving in to temptation and sin look foolish.

God address his people again in v. 1 and starts with “Behold”

Now remember from two weeks ago - “Behold” in the OT is a hebrew word that is used to get your attention because something unexpected is coming.

Up to this point the people were fixated on the ways that the wicked were prospering in the world, but God promises a future where the worldly prosperity will count for nothing.

Malachi 4:1 “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.”

God is saying If you live like the wicked, you’ll be judged like them too

God will judge sin - Hell is a real place. And God will give you exactly what you want.

You want to embrace sin and separation from God by pursuing evil gain - Then that is exactly what you’ll get.

Friend, If you don’t want that judgment, then run to God.

But you can’t escape judgment and embrace sin.

Choose your hard.

It is hard to walk by faith in a world that tempts you to turn from God.

It is hard to be judged by God because you embraced sin.

This should call to our minds the words of Jesus when he says in Matthew 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

The reality of judgment and hell is real and we do people a disservice to pretend like it isn’t.

God does not just make distinctions about our priorities in this life - He also makes distinctions about the eternal consequences of those priorities.

In fact, turn over a few pages to the right to Matthew 7:21

Jesus warned about this very distinction in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 7:21–23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

And later he reinforces this in Matt. 25 when he says that he will separate those who belong to him from those who don’t

We must stop with the confusion that God approves of everyone.

No, God makes distinctions between those who fear him and those who don’t and if we are to be motivated by God’s pleasure, we will make those same distinctions.

We must hear God’s words to his people as a warning - Ask yourself what priority has marked your life?

A desire to please God because you belong to him?

Or a desire to have worldly gain while simply claiming to belong to him?

If you remember back to when we were in Colossians over the summer, you will remember that Paul mentions a bunch of friends at the end of the letter who were partners in ministry.

If you weren’t here for that series, that’s okay - You can find it on our website and on the app.

In Col. 4, Paul mentions one man, Demas, in Col. 4:14 - He was a partner in the ministry with Paul, that’s all we know.

But then Paul, at the end of his life, in prison, waiting to die, says this about Demas in 2 Timothy 4:10 “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me…”

Claiming to be a partner with Paul, ultimately deserting Paul.

Why? Because he loved the world.

Jesus words in Matthew, God’s words through Paul, and God’s words through Malachi serve as a warning for us

When claim to belong to God, but you love the world, it will only be a matter of time before the truth comes out.

So turn to God, stop being motivated by human prosperity, and seek to live for God’s pleasure.

Now, turn back to Malachi - Look at what promises are ours when we turn to God and are motivated by his pleasure:

Malachi 4:2–3 “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.”

When we trust in God’s promises, healing and hope are ours, not fear and judgment.

Why? Because Jesus took the judgment for us. He bore in his own body on the cross the wrath of God so that we might live for God, having been forgiven of our sins and having been recreated in the image of Christ, so that we can live for God’s pleasure, the pleasure that Christ earned for us with his sinless life.

And so the world can tempt us to live for human, worldly prosperity, but instead we can be motivated by God’s pleasure and thereby trust his promises as we let go of the things of this world, knowing that eternity is coming.

And listen - We can then be honest with the people in our lives who are not yet living for God’s pleasure.

We can distinguish for them between being made right with God and not being right with God.

We can honestly share the Gospel with them

Any gospel presentation that does not make distinctions between wrath and mercy, sin and holiness, God and mankind, is not the true Gospel.

As I was studying this section of Malachi, I was reminded of a concert I went to of a very well known Christian band (Not going to say who it was…)

They came out before the concert and said they wanted to share the Gospel - Which I thought was great.

But it wasn’t great

Here is what they said - “God loves you just the way you are, wants to have a relationship with you, and wouldn’t change a thing about you. if you want that relationship, raise your hand.”

Then they claimed that all of those who raised their hand got saved that night.

No, no one got saved that night - You know why? That isn’t the Gospel and that isn’t true.

No distinctions were made at all.

It is dishonest to say God loves you just the way that you are and he wouldn't change a thing about you. Wrong! God does not love you just the way you are. God loves you in spite of the way that you are.

He loves you enough to not leave you where he found you and he loves you enough to change everything about you so that you look more like Jesus.

And that is the best possible outcome we could ever offer to anybody who doesn't yet know Jesus

But that requires that we make true distinctions according to the truth of God’s word.

When we make true distinction by trusting in God’s promises about eternity, we can live on mission in our community precisely because we see clearly the distinction of God’s judgment.

[CONCLUSION]

Church family, it is so essential that we make these distinctions in our lives

That we serve God, even if it costs us

That we rest in his approval, even if the world doesn’t approve

That we trust his promises in the midst of the temptation of the world

Because when we do, we show that we are motivated by God’s pleasure because we are his people.

Amen.

[40:00]