Malachi 1:1-5 | God’s Love
Notes
Transcript
SERMON TITLE: God’s Love
SCRIPTURE: (ESV)
SPEAKER: Josh Hanson
DATE: 9-20-26
TURN MIC ON / WELCOME
As always it’s a joy to be with all of you this weekend at Gateway Church. And there’s one thing I want you to know — and this is true if you’re worshiping with us for the first time or if you’re joining us at our North Main Campus — I want you to know that God loves you and that I love you too.
PASTORAL PRAYER
Each week we spend some time praying for people, circumstances, and situations going on in our congregation, community, country, and world.
Today we’ll be praying for
Please join me in prayer.
Gateway -
Local Community -
Nation -
World -
INTRODUCTION
We’re starting a new preaching series this weekend at Gateway. And, as you could tell by some changes to the worship service leading up to this sermon time, we’re taking the opportunity of starting a new series to try something else new. Allowing a song to be our introduction to the sermon each.
Speak, O Lord, as we come to you
To receive the food of your holy Word
Take your truth, plant it deep in us
Shape and fashion us in your likeness
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith
Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us
All your purposes for Your glory
Teach us, Lord, full obedience
Holy reverence, true humility
Test our thoughts and our attitudes
In the radiance of your purity
Cause our faith to rise, cause our eyes to see
Your majestic love and authority
Words of power that can never fail
Let their truth prevail over unbelief
Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds
Help us grasp the heights of your plans for us
Truths unchanged from the dawn of time
That will echo down through eternity
And by grace, we'll stand on your promises
And by faith, we'll walk as you walk with us
Speak, O Lord, 'til your church is built
And the earth is filled with your glory
Each summer the pastors and elders from our denomination gather together to learn, to conduct business, to fellowship with one another, and to worship. This past summer, before the six sermons preached over the three days, we sung Speak O Lord. And it was powerful. And our hope each week during this Malachi series, is that as we sing Speak O Lord, we will all be eager to hear from God through his Word to us.
And knowing that Malachi might not be as familiar of a book, we felt that it would be even more important for us to all remember why sermons are preached, why we gather together, why we come to worship. We do all of these things because we desire to hear from our speaking God — the God who speaks through his holy Word.
With that, if you have your Bible, please open it up to the book of Malachi. It’s the last book in the Old Testament — just before Matthew. We’ll be in the book of Malachi — chapter one — beginning in verse one. There we read…
1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. 2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 4 If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’ ” 5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”
My hope for today is that you’ll leave here in awe of God’s love for you and for all people. That even as you sit and listen — that your heart will be moved by what it means for the God who created everyone and everything to be a God who loves. We’re going to get here, I promise, but first, I need to help you understand this book, where we are in the history of God’s people, and some other important details because, as I said earlier, Malachi is often a pretty unfamiliar book for Christians.
GETTING OUR BEARINGS
The first thing you need to know is that Malachi is a prophet. And prophets, as I’m sure you may know, are people who spoke on behalf of God. The name Malachi can be translated as “my messenger.” So we’re not actually sure if Malachi is his name or if it simply means that this individual was God’s messenger. But for simplicities sake, we’ll consider Malachi to be his name.
Second, we don’t know much about Malachi. We know that he’s the last prophet to speak on God’s behalf until John the Baptizer shows up around 450 years later.
So that’s our who. Now let’s cover a bit of history so you know when all that’s in our book takes place. At this point in the history of God’s people, the Jews are divided into two nations. Originally there were the twelve tribes of Israel — each tribe descending from a son of Jacob — who was also named Israel. And these tribes eventually ask for a king. The first king was Saul. Next came David. Then David’s son — Solomon — became king.
After Solomon, there’s conflict over who should be king and the nation ends up dividing. Ten tribes join together and keep the name Israel — they’re in the north — and two tribes join together and are named Judah — they’re in the south.
And — for a while — neither Israel nor Judah experience external conflict — meaning war with other nations — but they have significant internal problems. Evil kings. Moral corruption. The people abandon God. Things are a big mess — which you can read about in the books First and Second Kings.
But here’s what may be hard for you to believe. The people of Israel and Judah both assume that the lack of external conflict — the fact that they’re not at war with other nations — is because God approves of the way they’re living. Meaning, they think “peaceful times” equals “God’s blessing.” But — remember — they’ve abandoned God and think that God approves of their behavior. So God sends the Assyrians to make things clear to his people.
The Assyrians come from the north and invade and conquer Israel. So Israel, as a nation, is done.
Down in Judah — things are better than up in Israel — but not much. They’re not conquered by the Assyrians — they’re just oppressed by them until the capital of Assyria — Nineveh — falls in 612 BC. Egypt comes in and overpowers Judah until the Babylonians defeat Egypt and conquer Judah in 587 BC.
Nebuchadnezzar is king of Babylon at the time — this is the same Nebuchadnezzar found in the book of Daniel. And — after conquering Judah — the Babylonians disperse many of the Jews — which begins the seventy years of living in exile that God had warned his people about — these seventy years in exile are a consequence of their sin and rebellion against him. Then — around 520 BC — Babylon falls to King Cyrus who’s the leader of the Persian Empire. And — it’s during Cyrus’ reign — that groups of Jewish people begin returning to their homeland.
Now — Malachi is alive around a hundred years after the Jewish people began returning home. The Temple’s been rebuilt under the leadership of Nehemiah. Yet the great hope — of a New Jerusalem — a city that’s the center of the Kingdom of God — a place where evil and corruption has been eradicated — well — none of it’s coming true. Instead — corruption, rebellion, and evil are still happening in full force.
And their response to their expectations not being met — even while they continue in sin and rebellion — is to question God. In fact, there’s a pattern in the book of Malachi. God makes a statement. And the people immediately question God about what he just said. This happens seven times.
We’ll obviously get to these as we go through this series, but I thought I’d give you a taste of what’s to come. Here’s how the people question God. After God says…
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?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord’s table may be despised.
In the next chapter…
17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”
In the next chapter…
7 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?’ 8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.
And…
13 “Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’
And then there’s their question in our passage.
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”
This is the crux of our passage — the people are doubting God’s love for them. One scholar writes, “The people were discouraged by [the] hard economic realities [of] Persian dominance. Some of the people felt that the Lord did not really love them because of these factors. Many Israelites were showing their dissatisfaction with the Lord by bringing defective animals for sacrifices. Some even went so far as to assert that worshipping the Lord was drudgery and serving God was a waste of time.”
All that history to say: We haven’t changed all that much as human beings. It’s common today for people to think that times of peace means that God is pleased with us. And — times of hardship — well obviously — hardship means that God doesn’t love us so why even bother trying to worship or serve him.
And what’s the result of the people questioning God’s love? Well…God sends Malachi with a message for the people. It’s stated this way in verse one.
1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
A pronouncement is about to be made on God’s behalf. God’s going to give his response to the rumors going on among the Jewish people. You think I don’t love you? You think that worshiping me is a waste of time? You think there’s no purpose in serving me because everything hasn’t turned out the way you thought it was going to? OK. Here’s my message.
And the messenger is Malachi.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE LOVED BY GOD?
And — again — here’s the first message Malachi was to speak to the people.
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”
Now God’s answer to their question — his defense of how he’s loved them — are words that have disturbed many Christians over many centuries. Here they are. I’ll let God just speak for himself.
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated.
We’re disturbed by the idea of God loving Jacob and hating Esau. And there’s no relief for our disturbance when we see how Paul quotes this verse in his letter to Christians living in Rome. In defending God’s sovereignty — meaning his Divine right — to choose who will be saved, Paul writes…
9 For God had promised, “I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” 10 This son was our ancestor Isaac. When he married Rebekah, she gave birth to twins. 11 But before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes; 12 he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.) She was told, “Your older son will serve your younger son.” 13 In the words of the Scriptures, “I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.”
And if we go back to Genesis — where this all is first recorded — this is what we read.
21 Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was unable to have children. The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant with twins. 22 But the two children struggled with each other in her womb. So she went to ask the Lord about it. “Why is this happening to me?” she asked. 23 And the Lord told her, “The sons in your womb will become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son.” 24 And when the time came to give birth, Rebekah discovered that she did indeed have twins! 25 The first one was very red at birth and covered with thick hair like a fur coat. So they named him Esau. 26 Then the other twin was born with his hand grasping Esau’s heel. So they named him Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.
And if you follow their story in Genesis, you will see that God chooses Jacob to be the son of the promise that he made to Isaac and to Isaac’s father, Abraham. And he didn’t choose Jacob because Jacob was worthy of being chosen. Jacob was a mess. A deceiver. A trickster. He did a good job of looking out for himself even at the cost of his family members. If you were writing this story, he’d not be the guy you’d pick. But he is the son who God chooses.
Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
Even when we soften the love hate language — and I think this is how you’re supposed to interpret what’s being said in Malachi, Romans, and Genesis — where love means God chose Jacob and where hate means God rejected Esau — even then — the disturbance is still there. And I can’t get rid of it for you. It’s just there. In the Bible. Part of the history of God’s people. Part of your history if you’re a Christian. It’s a truth you have to come to grips with — or, at the very least — submit yourself to while you say, “I’m submitted, but it still disturbs me.” For not just hear, but throughout the pages of the Bible — from Genesis to Revelation — we see God choosing those who will be his people and God rejecting those who are not his people. And just like Jacob and Esau, this choosing happened before any of us had done anything good or bad. Meaning the choosing isn’t based on something we did or didn’t do and it’s not based on something that we will or won’t do in the future. It’s just God’s choice. To make it be anything other than sovereign choice or Divine election is to try to take from God what is his sole right: As Savior, he chooses who he will save.
POINT 3
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CONCLUSION
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PRAYER
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BENEDICTION (Prayer teams available)
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God loves you. I love you. You are sent.
