So today we are starting a series in Malachi and we're
going to dig deeper in it. If you don't know where it is in
your Bibles, open up to where the New Testament starts.
You know that that break between the two and skip back a page or
two. If you're on a digital device,
you open up your Bible app and you go the book before Matthew.
That's how you find it. Malachi is the last book of the
Old Testament and the last of a group of books called the Minor
Prophets or the 12. And as these books tend to be
pretty short, they can be easy to miss, but they're still
important enough for God to include.
And so I'm going to, as I unpack the word of the book of Malachi,
let us just ask God to help us to understand what he has for us
here. Let us pray.
Father God, thank you for your word.
Thank you that the words that you spoke through the prophets
in generations past are still relevant for us today.
Please give me wisdom as I teach from the book of Malachi and
give us all ears that are ready to hear what you want to tell
us. Make us ready to apply these
truths to our lives and hearts that are devoted to you in Jesus
name, Amen. So as we look at the book of
Malachi, I'm going to break it down into three main sections to
make it a bit easier to follow and just to make it a bit more
fun. We're going to be sponsored by
the letter C today. First, we're going to look at
the context of Malachi. Then we're going to look at the
concerns of Malachi as a as a whole.
Then we're going to dig deeper into the first few verses and
we're going to look at the core of Malachi.
So you're already you found the book.
Let's jump in the context of Malachi.
Malachi is the last of the prophets in the Old Testament,
and while some scholars disagree about exactly when it was
written, it's very likely it was written about 100 years after
the Israelites returned back to their land from exile under the
Persian king Cyrus. This means it has probably been
written to people who had been back in the land for more than a
generation, maybe two or three generations.
And while the exile and the return from exile would have
still been a a corporate memory, it would no longer be a lived
memory. Most of the people living at the
time would not have been in exile.
They would have been in the land again.
After Cyrus's decree to allow the people to return to their
homeland, a small and unimpressive remnant came back
to Israel. Spurred on by the ministries of
the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, they constructed a
new temple. But this temple had fallen far
short of the glorious temple that was built by Solomon, and
so everyone was somewhat disappointed with the result.
Then under the ministry of the prophet Nehemiah, the people had
rebuilt the walls of the city and Nehemiah had also come to
return something of the old way of life to God's people.
Ezra came next and he brought the people back to the Word of
God and he was stressing it's importance for their daily
living and calling them to repentance where they had gone
away from what God had commanded.
But when he called them out for specific sins, the response of
the people was half hearted. There were times that were
characterized by a neglect of the temple, characterized by
improper worship practices. There was no tithing happening,
and defiled offerings were being given to the Lord.
They were careless about the Sabbath, they had intermarried
with the idolatrous neighbors, and injustice and poverty were
just as prevalent as they had been before the exile.
Now, I'm sure the exile of God's people from the Promised Land,
first by Assyria, then by Babylon, had been a shock to the
nation. Their whole identity had been
built on the events where God took them out of slavery in
Egypt and brought them into this land through many miracles and
provision. And so throughout their time of
exile, it would have been hard for those who wanted to return
to cling to the promises that God had said he would bring them
back. And alongside those promises of
a return, there were also promises being made about a
Messiah who would lead them. So you can understand how those
two ideas would become very much intertwined with each other.
In their minds, God had promised to send a king who would deliver
them from their enemies. And this king would rule over a
once again united Israel, and the nations would bow the knee
before him. This Kingdom would be marked by
peace and justice. So when God seemed to be moving
the hearts of their captors to allow them to return home, it
looked like he was finally going to come through and deliver them
and begin to fulfil these prophecies.
But when they arrived back in Israel, things didn't look so
good for them. Yes, there were some of their
people now back in the land, but Israel was still a people
scattered among the nations, and while there was a remnant who
had come back, it still wasn't their land.
They were an occupied people under Persian rule.
They were broken and poor, and their identity as God's people,
as being special and chosen, had been shaken.
They had come home full of hope and expectation that God was
going to deliver them and fulfill his promises to them.
And now that they had been back in the land for a while, it was
clear that many of those expectations had been
disappointed. They were still not free from
oppression and it when it came to their hearts, just like their
ancestors, they still fell short of a life of faithful obedience.
So this is the context that Malachi is writing into.
This is the people that he was addressing.
So what are the main concerns of Malachi?
All right, So what is this message that he had for Israel?
What are the things God wanted to address?
Well, First off is the format. Most scholars will agree that
this book is the format of a legal discourse.
We're in a courtroom here. We are making charges against
each other. Malachi is structured around six
disputes or arguments between God and Israel.
Each dispute is introduced by a charge or a claim that God makes
about Israel, which has been followed by a counterclaim that
Israel makes against God, to which God finally responds in
the last section of each part, giving his perspective on the
charges that they made. Now.
The questions addressed in Malachi cover a variety of
topics. God's love for Israel.
The priest. Neglect of their
responsibilities in the temple. The corruption of the people
relating to their idolatrous marriages and their divorces.
The absence of God's justice. The neglect of the tithe.
The argument that it was pointless to serve God.
Now in most of these charges, God is confronting Israel's
selfishness and sin. But not only does he confront
their corruption, he also includes, in the midst of all
the rebukes and warnings of judgement, a promise of blessing
to those who are faithful to him.
In Malachi, we see reiterated the promise of God's coming
messenger and two depictions of the day of the Lord that this
messenger will usher in. On the one hand, it will be a
day of reckoning and judgement, destroying all who do not fear
God. On the other hand, it is
described as a day of healing and joy for those who do fear
Him. So Malachi is all about God's
covenant with Israel and whether he and his people have been
faithful to it. While Malachi is full of
examples of Israel's failure to honour God, their failure to
keep their side of the covenant with Him at its heart, all of
that rests against the background of God's covenant
love for Israel. Which is why it is fitting that
the very first claim that God makes is I have loved you.
And this brings us to the core of Malachi's message, God's
covenant love for his people. Let me read the first 5 verses
of Malachi chapter 1, The Oracle of the Word of the Lord to
Israel by Malachi. 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, but Esau I have hated.
I have laid waste his Hill Country and left his heritage to
jackals of the desert. 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 your
own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, great is the Lord
beyond the border of Israel. So just to get this out of the
way, Malachi starts with a typical prophetic attribution.
This is God's word delivered by the prophet Malachi.
Now, Malachi, according to this formula is probably just the
name of the prophet, though some scholars are sceptical because
they haven't come across the name Malachi in any other
literature from the times, and technically Malachi means my
messenger, so they think that Malachi is not the prophet's
actual name, but just referring to some anonymous messenger of
God. However, this formula is fairly
consistently used with the names of actual prophets, so I see no
reason to think that Malachi wasn't just a very appropriately
named messenger of God to the people.
But what we really want to know is about this message.
So let's move on to verse 2. I have loved you, says the Lord.
Well, if that's the way God starts a message to me, I like
where this is going. Maybe I personally would prefer
the present tense. I do love you, but the gist is
there. The opening line is about God's
love for his people. And since it's in the past
tense, it seems to have an element of referring to God's
past actions regarding this love and not just a vague feeling or
affection that he has for us. So the first charge, the first
claim in this message is that God has loved his people,
Israel. Now, this is not a new idea that
God has loved Israel. He's already expressed his
relationship with them in these terms many times before.
In fact, the Hebrew word for love, because there's multiple
words they use, the one used in this text is generally the one
used in the context of God's covenant love.
Now this term signifies a deep action oriented covenant or bond
of love and commitment rather than just an emotion that may
pass. And it is this kind of love that
God has for Israel. Of course, if you're confused by
the word covenant, you want a definition.
Think of the place as most commonly used in our day and
time, we talk about a marriage covenant.
A covenant was the deepest, most binding kind of agreement or
relationship any two parties could commit themselves to.
It was personal, it was relational, and it was not
something you would enter into lightly or get out of lightly.
This is the kind of commitment that God initiated with Israel
through Abraham and his descendants.
So let's look at some of the examples where God used this
kind of language before the time of Malachi.
So you get a bit more of a picture of how they would have
heard this word before Israel entered the promised land.
Moses said the following to them in Deuteronomy 7.
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.
The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured
possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of
the earth. It was not because you were way
more in number than any other people that the Lord set his
love on you and chose you for the you were the fewest of all
peoples. But it is because the Lord loves
you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your Father's, that
the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed
you from the House of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king
of Egypt. Know, therefore, that the Lord
your God is God at the faithful God who keeps His covenant and
steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His
commandments to 1000 generations.
God's love for Israel was expressed at that time in
relation to how God had miraculously brought them out of
slavery in Egypt through mighty signs and wonders, and how He
had begun to bring His people into the land He had promised to
give them a bit later in their history.
We see a similar phrase used in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah.
Now this is the book written to Israel, who has already been
fractured, and a large portion of them have already been exiled
to Assyria. And he writes in the time before
and during the exile of the remaining parts of Israel to
Babylon. And this is what God says of His
plans for Israel at that time, declares the Lord.
I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall
be my people. Thus says the Lord.
The people who survived the sword found grace in the
wilderness. When Israel sought Forrest, the
Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I've
continued my faithfulness to you.
Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O Virgin Israel.
Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go
forth in the dawns of merry makers.
Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria, and
the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit.
For there shall be a day when the Watchmen will call in the
Hill Country of Ephraim. Arise, let us go to Zion, to the
Lord our God. For thus says the Lord, Sing
aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief
of the nations. Proclaim, give praise and say, O
Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.
Behold, I will bring them from the North Country and gather
them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind
and the lame, the pregnant woman, and she who is in labour
together a great company. They shall return here.
With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will
lead them back. I will make them walk by brooks
of water in straight parts in which they shall not stumble,
for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first born.
Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the
coastlands far away. Say he who scattered Israel will
gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.
For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands
too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud
on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the
goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, the oil, over
the young of the flock and the herd.
Their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall
languish no more than then shall the young woman rejoice in the
dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy.
I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow.
I will feast the soul of priests with abundance, and my people
shall be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord.
Now I included a whole lot there because it paints a picture.
Yeah. God expresses His love for
Israel as an everlasting love in the context of this promised
liberation from the enemies that surround them.
We see it expressed in the promise that He will bring all
the plans of Israel back to the land.
And the way He describes this return is in such positive
terms. Streams of water, straight paths
so that they don't stumble. They will come singing and
dancing and radiant over the goodness of God.
They'll find comfort and joy instead of mourning, and they
will be satisfied by abundance and God's goodness.
This is what God, what Israel, would have understood by God's
claim that he has loved them. So what is their counterclaim?
How have you loved us? You've heard their expectations
when you spoke about God's love, what they would have thought of
that. They expected the return to the
land to be triumphant and filled with abundance and blessing.
But you get the distinct impression that their
experiences didn't line up. Israel is suspicious and doubts
God's love. They ask, How have you loved us?
In what way have you loved us? Behind that statement is a
request for evidence. Prove that you love us.
Behind that statement is doubt. Have you really loved us?
And perhaps, given the context I spoke about earlier, you could
understand something of why they might feel this way.
Yes, God had brought them back into the land, but the Remnant
was small and weak and struggling.
Probably many had opted to stay where they were, in Babylon or
Assyria, because they had settled in and become
comfortable in their new homes, the new jobs.
And those who did come back were struggling.
They were poor. They were people around them who
opposed them like they did when they tried to repair, restore
the temple and the city walls. People who were not happy to see
the Israelites come back and claim their share of the land.
And they weren't free. They were still living under the
rule of another political power. They still had to answer to
local governors who reported to the king of another land.
And even after they had been settled for generations, they
still witnessed injustice. Wicked people prospered while
they struggled to get by enough to make them question if there's
any value in serving God. Did serving Yahweh make any
difference when the people following other gods seem to be
living better? I mean, he brought them back
into the land, but was it worth it?
The charge that Israel makes against God is a serious one,
and it's an emotional one, and a one that needs to be given
proper weight even today. Because for many people this
question is real and visceral. Israel had been measuring God's
love by their circumstances, and they had their doubts.
You see, when you measure God's love by your circumstances, it
can be too easy to fall to a position of doubting that God
actually cares about you. When life is hard and when the
heart doesn't let up, it can be easy to listen to the lie that
God has abandoned you and given the opportunity to stand before
God and make a charge against Him.
I imagine many of us could have stood up at one time or another
in a position like Israel where we asked God, do you really love
me? I know, I've been there.
So it is into this hurt, to this charge that God gives the answer
in the rest of the passage. And it's probably not the answer
you expect. It's not Esau, Jacob's brother
declares the Lord. Yet.
I've loved Jacob, but Esau I've hated.
I've laid waste his Hill Country and left his heritage to the
jackals of the desert. 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 your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, great
is the Lord beyond the border of Israel.
Now God could have answered Israel by reminding him that it
was He who rescued them from slavery in Egypt in the first
place. More recently, it was Him who
had brought them back into the land as He had promised.
But instead he goes back even further.
He goes back to the story of two brothers and how he chose to
make his covenant of love with Jacob the younger of the 2
instead of with the first born Esau.
The language of loved 1 and hated another in Hebrew writing
would not have been a statement about the emotions involved in
love and hate as much as a statement of giving preference
to 1 instead of the other. The promises he made to Abraham
to make him a great father of a great nation through whom he
would bless all the families of the earth.
These got passed on to Abraham's first born son Isaac, and then
they get passed on to Jacob instead of his older brother as
would have been expected. And so Jacob becomes a picture
of God's sovereign choice. This is the outworking of the
idea that God expressed to Moses about himself in Exodus 3319.
I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show
mercy on whom I will show mercy. God's love isn't earned.
It's a gift he bestows on people who have done nothing to deserve
it. Here God is reminding Israel
that their position as beloved of God is something that is
theirs by virtue of God's choice alone.
We already saw in Deuteronomy that God's choice of the nation
Israel was not because of their size and greatness, but his love
was committed to them because of the promise he had made to
Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob.
Israel finds themselves in a privileged position, being
favoured by God purely because he chose them.
And it's the same with us. We don't find favour with God
because of how good we are. The truth is, we are never good
enough and when your doubt of God's love is rooted in a
performance based mentality, the idea that you need to measure up
before God could possibly love you, then this answer should be
reassuring. His love is not based on how
good you are, it's based on His sovereign choice.
God has chosen you to receive His love.
Israel also needed this reminder.
They were looking for evidence of God's love in their
circumstances. But God says stop looking at
that. Look at how I chose you, how I
chose Jacob over Esau. In fact, when the rest of the
passage in Malachi starts describing how God actually
dealt with Esau, it's very clear there's a distinction between
them. God says he has laid waste to
Esau's Hill Country and left his heritage to jackals.
And even if Esau plans to rebuild, God says, I will tear
it down again. Whereas Jacob was chosen, Esau
was destroyed completely. Now, if at this point you're
thinking maybe God is a little vindictive, he's choosing one to
bless and choosing another one to destroy and ruin.
It would help if we remember that some of some of the history
between Jacob and Esau. You see, Edom, Esau's
descendants, had regularly set themselves up against Israel
after the exodus from Egypt. When Israel wanted to pass
through the land of Edom, they refused passage and threatened
to fight them, forcing them to take a longer route.
And when Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem, the Edomites joined
the Babylonians in attacking them and rejoiced at their
downfall. Amos 111 reminds us that God's
punishment of Esau was the result of their own actions,
because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all
pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his
wrath forever. Obadiah 10 also affirms, because
of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover
you, and you shall be cut off forever.
So as far as God's judgement is concerned, Esau is being
punished for their own wickedness.
They are simply getting the fruit of their own choices.
God is delivering nothing more than justice, and This is why
they're able to say great is the Lord when they see it come to
pass. You see, God doesn't punish
anyone unfairly, for all have sinned and fall short of God's
glory. But salvation.
It's a gift that comes by grace. By drawing this comparison
between Jacob and Esau, God is trying to remind his people that
His love is constant, not because it's based on their
performance, but because of his promise.
God has loved them because he chose them.
Case closed. There's nothing more to it.
And this is important to establish upfront because the
rest of the message coming in. Malachi is going to be exploring
how Israel have failed to honour their part of the covenant and
so it needs to be on the back backdrop of how God has not.
God has kept his end. They have failed to keep God's
command, they have failed to honour God, but God has loved
them faithfully and brought them back into the land as he
promised. So what does this mean for us?
What application can we take from this message that God gave
the Israelites as they were struggling to hold on to hope in
the land as they waited for God to fulfil everything he
promised? Well, for one thing, it reminds
us that when we feel like God doesn't care about us or our
problems, the problem is not with God's character.
More specifically, the problem lies with us and our flawed
expectations. There are many things that might
make us doubt God's love for us. It could be a pattern of sin
that we don't want to give up begins to build up resentment.
It could be that our circumstances are hard.
It could be that we feel like we just don't measure up.
But these are all problems in our own hearts.
When we struggle with the lack of a desire to repent, it's our
own hearts. When our pride leaves us feeling
like God owes us more, that's our own hearts.
Or whether we just struggle to grasp the benefit that God could
work in our lives by allowing us to suffer for Him.
These are all things that can cause us to question God's love.
But when we begin to question God's love, our focus gets so
stuck on accusing Him that we can completely miss what He
wants to do in our lives if we would just humble ourselves and
draw near to Him to learn from Him.
Still, I don't want to gloss over the difficulty of the
situations that cause us to doubt God's love.
Just this week I was watching one of those Kendrick Brothers
movies. Anyone know them?
Know which ones I'm talking about?
They typically have a lot of the same cast appearing in multiple
movies, just different characters each time, and a
storyline that often involves a rather cliche type of challenge
and circumstances. And then the lead character
meets up with someone in the community, an older lady, older
gentleman who offers them wisdom, speaks like a pastor in
front of the church with faith and conviction, and encourages
the lead character to get serious about the Lord, which
lead character then does. They begin to pray, and suddenly
things begin to change, and the problem ultimately gets resolved
and wrapped up very neatly with a nice little bow by the end of
the story. Yes, they're often cheesy, but
they're clean and sweet and inspirational as they remind us
about the power of God and a life surrendered to Him.
But the main problem I have with these movies, and I'm I'm not
dissing them, they have their place.
The main problem that I have with these movies that they seem
to have little room for prolonged hardship and suffering
or situations that never get resolved to our satisfaction.
The losing football team or whatever team or athlete is the
protagonist will be victorious or at least end in a respectable
second place. By the end of the of the the
season, the broken marriage will be restored and back to what it
was before. By the end of the school year,
the kids will have repented and he will have gotten his life
back on track before the seasons even change.
And yes, maybe that's something to be said about movies in
particular, because they do need to be concluded within a about
two hour period, so there's no time to drag out the challenges.
But quite frankly, we'd probably find the extended version a bit
boring or hard to watch. That's why movies often skip
those kind of scenes. The time spent training, the
time spent praying and waiting, those are normally wrapped up in
a little musical montage, but the reality is typically a lot
more messy and a little less pretty.
People facing challenges in real life find they're often harder
to resolve and wrap up neatly than those in the movies,
especially if the challenges are drawn out over month after month
after month, or even years. Yes, we all need to pray more
and depend on God more. More.
But what do you do when your attempts at faith have left you
disappointed, left you feeling like God?
Do you love me? Do you really care about what
I'm going through? When you're trying to be
thankful that God has given you work, but you put in so many
exhausting hours and the money never seems to stretch far
enough? When that relationship you've
been praying about for months just doesn't seem to show any
signs of improving. When the family member or the
friend you've been praying for for so long seems to be
entrenched in a sinful habit that they have no interest in
giving up. When the illness that you prayed
for healing for so long ends in the death of a loved one, where
is God in the midst of that prolonged suffering has a way of
eroding your faith and causing you to doubt God's love.
Yes, Lord, I know you have the words of life, and there's
nowhere else I can turn but You. But sometimes, sometimes Even
so, I wonder if you love me because my life doesn't look
like how I imagined it would look if you really cared about
me. Because we tend to judge love
according to a standard of what we want and what we have.
Look at how much her boyfriend loves her.
He takes our expensive dates and he's always buying her
chocolates and flowers. Look how much my daddy loves me
or my husband. I just have to mention that I
want something and he buys it for me, right?
Isn't that how we often look at love?
How easy it is to translate that kind of thinking to how we
understand God's love? I mean, that's why so many
people would love to flock to prosperity preachers, because
you want to hear how God loves us so much that we never need to
worry again and money and financial struggles will be a
thing of the past. If God's love translates to
material benefit, then surely life and faith would be so much
easier. And honestly, this isn't a new
way of thinking. Has anyone read Psalm 73?
I just took a few verses out of there.
But As for me, my feet had almost stumbled.
My steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the
arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For they have no pangs until death.
Their bodies are fat and sleek. They're not in trouble as others
are. They are not stricken like the
rest of mankind. All in vain.
I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
We want to know if there is value in serving God.
What does this Christianity thing get for me?
But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me
a wearisome task, until I went to the sanctuary of God.
Then I discerned their end. Truly.
You set them in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin.
Does this not echo with what was said about Edom?
Right. Something happens when we enter
the sanctuary. Something happens when we shift
our attention from our circumstances and start looking
at God, not for His provision, though He does provide, but to
see Him. No, our circumstances don't
typically change the moment we start coming to church the way
they do in the movies. But when we keep coming to God
honestly and humbly and are open to hearing from His perspective
on things, we may find that we actually start to change.
Maybe the change in US looks like a growing disgust for the
sin and the habit that we have been so desperate to hold onto.
Maybe the change in US looks like more gratitude for God and
who he is, and a desire to seek his presence over the things
that he he gives us as we realise how good it is to be
near the Lord. Maybe the change is simply, as
the psalmist discovered, a dose of perspective that puts our
troubles in the light of God's eternal plan, so we can see
them, as Paul did, as light and momentary.
You see, knowing God is the blessing, It's the greatest
blessing of all, greater than any financial provision, to be
able to have a real relationship with the One who made you for
himself. That is the definition of
fulfilling your purpose. And everyone who is able to
recognize that Jesus is Lord can respond to this invitation.
And his invitation is to a life of abundance, maybe not in terms
of finances or freedom from trouble, but abundance in terms
of joy, abundance in terms of peace that passes understanding,
abundance in terms of fulfilment and purpose.
The people in the time of Malachi were still waiting to
see God's fulfilment of of all the promises he had made.
They didn't yet see how the story would end, but we've seen
it. When humankind continued to fail
honour, to fail to honour God. God came down in Jesus Christ
and showed us the best way to live.
And then he became the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf, the
purest sin offering, taking the punishment we deserved so that
we could be made new. And then he sent us the Holy
Spirit to live within us, so that we could be transformed
within and made holy. And he's promised to come again
in glory and to judge all the wicked, and to bring those who
trust Him into a perfected creation to live in joyful
harmony and relationship with Him for all eternity.
And he offers us all of this without us doing anything to
earn it. We can continue, like Esau,
reaping the wage of our own sin and rebellion against God, or we
can come to Him and accept his gracious offer of salvation and
turn to Him in faith. If you would do that, If you
would accept His gift of love, then I can promise you your life
will never be the same. No, it doesn't mean you won't
have troubles. In fact, once God starts working
in you to reject the ways of the world, you may find life gets
harder. But you will be going through
life with a constant companionship of the One who
knows you better than you know yourself, and who wants the very
best for you. He will walk through every trial
with you, and He will strengthen you to endure and persevere in
faith. He will create in you a hope
that will not disappoint if you fix your eyes on Him, no matter
the circumstances, if you will accept His invitation.
I'd like to ask everyone just to close the eyes as we go through
a few reflections. As I want to wrap up, I don't
know where every single person is, but God knows.
And if He was someone who has not yet responded to God's
invitation, this is your moment to think about it now.
God has loved you. He has called you.
He has chosen you to be His. Will you come?
Maybe right now, in this quiet of your heart, come to Him and
ask Him to help you Trust Him and follow Him.
Take a moment to repent of your sinful expectations of wanting
to do things your way, and recognise that His way is the
best way. Ask Him to give you His Spirit
to guide you going forward. And if you are someone who's
already been walking with Him, I want you to take this moment
right now and think about the thing in your life that has most
made you doubt God's love. What is that hardship?
What is that situation? What is that relationship?
And take that to God. Ask God to help you see that
thing from His perspective. Ask Him to give you the
Longview, the bigger picture that you've been missing.
Maybe there's something he's been trying to teach you, but
you haven't been listening. Maybe there's a sinful habit
that you've been refusing to give up.
Maybe there's something in your life, something you thought was
neutral, but it's getting in the way of your enjoying God.
Maybe there's a promise or a truth about God's character that
you have allowed to be twisted and distorted by your
expectations and your circumstances.
Take a moment to repent of your sinful expectations and to thank
God for His constant and faithful love.
Father God, we recognise that you are God.
You see things that we don't. You know the beginning from the
end, you know our many sins and failings, and yet you have loved
us anyway. Thank you for your generous and
gracious love. Thank you for choosing us, for
calling us to the best of all things, to know you, to walk
with you for all of our days. Help us when the days and the
months and the years are hard to remember Your love and your
faithfulness. Help us to keep on trusting You
even when we don't see the things that we would like to
see. Shape us by Your Spirit so that
we may more and more understand the way you are working in US
and submit to your leading and keep on trusting even when the
end isn't clear to us. Thank you for your goodness to
us in Jesus name, Amen.