Malachi Nice Bits
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Review
Review
Malachi - Author and Messenger
Malachi - Author and Messenger
He was the author & His name means My Messenger
Theme: True worship is an expression to God from a good relationship with Him. It is not a deed done, or ritual, event, or religious practice.
Theme: True worship is an expression to God from a good relationship with Him. It is not a deed done, or ritual, event, or religious practice.
David H. Roper said, “The Israelites were experiencing a decline in the quality of their life because they had lost their desire for a relationship with God, and His personal and intimate love for them. Therefore, because they had no sense of God's love for them, their love for God became cold and mechanical. That then impacted every relationship in their lives.”
Nice Bits
Nice Bits
God loves His people!
God loves His people!
“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
Dwight L. Moody started a revival at Cambridge University by saying, "Men, don't think that God don't love you, 'cause He do." Moody only had a 8th-grade education, and yet God used that him to turn tens of thousands to a relationship with Christ. He made people think about the implications of God’s love.
In verses 1-5 God expresses this love by saying I have given you a hope and a future. Jeremiah talks about the same thing. “giving a hope and a future”
We, as Christians, also have a hope and a future!
The most broadly accepted truth about God!
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
One author said, “Every bit of love we have comes as a result of God’s love for us.”
So, knowing this, we can have great confidence!
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.
God is interested in loving more than just Israel!
Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”
For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
The Lord is coming!
The Lord is coming!
“Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap.
While it will be hard on many, it is something to eagerly anticipate for His people who are living in a right relationship with Him.
Refined gold and silver have nothing to hid. When we are seen clothed in His righteousness, we also will have nothing to hide!
He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness.
He will purify - not incinerate to nothing! God’s purifying will bring true Social Justice - not just the bits that some want today (“race” “Gender” …), but across the board!
God does not change!
God does not change!
“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
In the first half of this verse He says, in effect,
"I am the Lord, and I always act like the Lord. I never change.”
"From the beginning of time I have acted like God; I have never acted in any other way than you would expect God to act.”
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Because we have a God who does not change, we can depend on Him. We can trust His commandments/ordinances and His ways.
God wants to bless!
God wants to bless!
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.
This is not a get rich quick thing or a wealth and prosperity thing! It is a life lived in faithfulness bringing results!! God still expects work to be done.
I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts.
God had worked this way in their past!
Forty years You sustained them in the wilderness; They lacked nothing; Their clothes did not wear out And their feet did not swell.
Deut 8.4 says the same
Much of the time we think of God blessing by giving more. Yet history has also shone that He can bless by making things last. Cars that keep passing rego long after you expected, cloths that last, food that is satisfying even in smaller portions even bumper crops as we work the veggie garden.
Don’t place God in a box about how He has to bless. That is never our place. He is not a magic vending machine that we pay our dues to, and push the buttons to get what we want from Him!
God will bless in the future!
God will bless in the future!
But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves.
Not only will there be healing, but also abundance.
One aspect of the our future blessing is knowing that wickedness will not prevail!
verse 4.3
Conclusion: True worship is an expression to God from a good relationship with Him.
Conclusion: True worship is an expression to God from a good relationship with Him.
God loves us and that makes the relationship possible.
God is in favour of good relationships and supports them among His people.
God blesses those who seek a relationship with Him.
Without a personal, intimate relationship with God, life always declines in value. This is true of nations, and it is true of individuals. We saw in Malachi that the people of his day did not take God seriously and so the nation declined, until no one took the nation seriously.
So, “Don't think that God don't love you, 'cause He do!”
1.Can you identify expressions of God’s love in your life?
2.Is your relationship with Him so strong that you are looking forward to His return?
3.What does God’s blessing pouring into your life look like? Can you express it?