Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good Morning family and friends.

Those that are here and online.

Thank all for joining us today.

Who is glad they are here this morning?

I sure am.

As Chris has said, summer will be a little different for us this year but after multiple summers of covid I think we will be just fine.

This summer will be an opportunity for some reflection, healing , and hopefully we will be changed by God.

Even though Chris will be on sabbatical we need to take some time to look at what we are doing and what God’s will for us is.

This is an interesting week to preach, because the last couple of weeks have been full of some big events.

There continue to be shootings around the country, we continue to wrestle with the challenges in our denomination, we have the overturning of Roe V Wade and the emotional response on both sides of the isle as a result of the decision.

Our political climate is ramping up into the battle between who will be in charge of our country and states.

We have insane housing costs, gas prices are painful and we have inflation on the rise that most of us have not been apart of before.

Before we can work through many of these things we need to have a correct perception.

My father in law used to always tell me the economy was fine because it wasn’t a double digit economy, Inflation, interest rates, and unemployment were not all over 10%.

I am not saying he is right I am just saying that he had a different reality than I have experienced.

His reality is different than mine.

From the beginning people have been creating their own reality.

What do I mean by creating their own reality?

I mean is this.

there are facts and truths that define the world around us.

As we grow, we gain a better understanding of the facts and truths that exist and then based on what we do with those facts we perceive the world around us and that defines what is real to us.

A child’s perception of the world around them is constantly changing.

But they universally understand that gravity is at work.

I have never met a child who walked around holding onto heavy objects because they believed that they would float away at any moment.

A child’s world is always changing and they are very nimble to adapt to the changing facts but as we get older our adaptation to the reality of the world can be polluted.

Sometimes we just don’t have all of the facts.

Have you ever been there.

You made conclusions and reacted a certain way and later you learned that you did not have all of the information to understand what was going on.

Sometimes we get our facts from the wrong place and the wrong people.

I was on a trip last summer hanging out in the hotel and there was a covid outbreak in a certain city that was highly vaccinated.

I watched the news on a station use the statistics of the event to talk about how it was all of the non vaxers fault and that this was what happens when people are selfish.

I flipped the tv a couple of channels forward to another news program and they were using the exact same statistics to talk about the fact that vaccinations are ineffective because outbreaks can still happen.

Who was right?

we must be careful where we get our information from and even more careful to come up with our own conclusion because if the last 3 years have taught us anything is that you cannot believe every thing you hear on tv.

And another thing even more worrying is that something begins to develop in us as we grow into adults where we can ignore certain facts and truths to support a false reality.

I am not going to say who is right or wrong but how is it possible that grown adults cannot determine if the world is flat or not.

At one time the world did not have all of the facts and they made false assumptions.

But now don’t we have enough facts to come to a conclusion or are more facts required.

We have a breakdown of reality going on in the world (those outside the body of Christ and those inside the body of Christ).

This is nothing new and as history shows, it will continue to be a way of life for us until Jesus returns and wipes out sin.

So what does this mean for us?

We are going to have a reality check this summer.

We are going to ask the questions, are we ignoring facts and truth, are we getting our facts and truth from the right place, do we have the correct perception, is our reality false or does it need to be redefined.

Who is willing to go on this journey this summer.

Know that we are doing the will of God.

Living a life that brings Glory to him.

We are going to take a detour from Ephesians for the summer.

Chris will return and pick up where he is leaving off and we are going to go to the book of Malachi for the summer.

We will dive into the last book in the OT.

It is a great book for us today.

It is my prayer that God will speak to us through this book in a powerful way this summer.

Let us begin with a little background.

There are two views on who the writer is.

Malachi means “my messenger” and since we know literally nothing about him from the bible, many believe this could be an anonymous prophet.

The majority believe that a man named Malachi wrote the book.

The book starts out consistent with other prophetic books which are clearly written by the one addressed.

Where this fits into the story of the OT is not direct either.

There are no dates or events in the book to give a definite timeline but the themes and issues in the book relate to the same issues that Nehemiah and Ezra were addressing which would put this book at the end of the OT.

Isreal had been in captivity and Nehemiah was given permission to rebuild.

He went to Jerusalem twice.

The first time to build the wall back up and second time to address issues that were going on.

It has been over a century since the last prophesies were written and Isreal is impatient and now cynical and skeptical.

He addresses the issues in what is call a disputation style or in other words questions and argument.

He will actually ask the questions they are thinking and then he will provide argument against those questions.

So let us Pray as we enter into his word.

Pray

Stand with me as we read Malachi Chapter 1 verses 1-5.

This in a section titles the Lord’s Love for Isreal.

Reality of God's Love

The book starts with “a pronouncement”.

Your translation may say a burden or an oracle.

This is a prophecy of the Lord through the man Malachi.

Malachi is very direct with a statement of the Lord.

“I have loved you.”

The usage here is a great affection of deep care for his people.

A love that choose them solely because he chose to love them.

It is a complete first person love.

He is not saying I loved you in the past he is saying I choose to love you past, present, and future.

He has continually demonstrated this love throughout the history of Isreal.

For about the last three years we have been going through the narrative of the bible with our students.

We are in our second time in the old testament and I am baffled by God’s chosen people.

I read about the power and Glory that God showed them and I go how do you forget so fast.

Starting with Adam and Eve and the fall and how short a time it takes to forget.

Did you realize that Noah was the first in the line of Adam that would not be able to talk to Adam face to face.

On top of that, at the time of the flood Methuselah and Lamech both were alive for over 60 years before Adam died and they perished in the flood.

That means that during the time of the wickedness of the people that there were people who had probably heard 1st hand accounts of Adam and Eve’s life with God and how they were created.

Then you have Jacob’s family lead to Egypt by God through Joseph and then the exodus form Egypt.

The parting of the red sea.

Can you imagine?

Then Moses goes up on the mount for 40 days and they are like.

I guess he is not coming back so lets make a new God.

Hey Aaron help us out.

Ok.

What? isn’t Moses your brother?

Isn’t it you families story on your brother being raised by pharaohs daughter and then God using him to lead his people out of Egypt.

How can you forget so fast.

God is once again reminding them of what he has always done.

He has always loved them.

Everything that comes after this is from God’s love.