Refined by the Messiah | Finding Hope in Advent

I'm going to brag on my worship committee one

more time. We thank you for that song. I don't

know if it kicked anyone else in the face, but

it kicked me. And that, what a powerful way to

look at a song that we know, come all ye faithful,

but what happens when that's not the case? The

beautiful thing is faithfulness, though that

is what we're striving to be. We're doing our

best as we can. We all will fall in that. And

I think that's a great bridge to where we're

going to talk about today. We heard it with the

Surley family as they talked about, I think it

was Jack that talked about, it's not always a

fun thing to go through purification. That there

are a lot of things in life, when we think of

purification, when we think about that process,

you might be like me, I go straight to the fire.

Right? That we're talking about. Things are refined

by the fire. A couple years ago, I think it was

two years ago, we went to the Cuyahoga National

Forest, right? Who was in the state of Ohio,

right? That just lost the Big Ten Championship

last night. Was that it? Good. Yep. First time

ever. Oh, we even got claps. Wow. First time

ever being a Hoosiers fan. Don't like it. But

understand that we went to go see a glass blower.

It's something that my middle son, Teddy, really

is intrigued by. And maybe he'll want to do that

for his life. That we watched them go through

this process of glass blowing. And just the heat.

It was unreal. It was very cold outside. And

the heat in the building was insane. But watching

what they were able to do with just a piece of,

I think it's glass, right? Glass blowing. That

makes sense in my head. Sorry. Is they created

something beautiful through all of this heat.

The purification process was unbelievable, right?

Teddy loved it and then asked us to buy it when

we were done with it. And the thing about glassblowing

stuff, it's not cheap. But it's because it's

worthy of something. It's worth a lot, especially

the time and effort to go through with it. And

that's exactly where Malachi is. Now Malachi,

a minor prophet, the last book of the Old Testament,

which I think is important. We'll get to that

in a minute. really builds on where Jeremiah

was last week, rooting our hope in God who keeps

his promises. We're going to kind of look at

the past, look at the present, look at the future

for this cross -shaped advent, as we called it

last week. We looked at Jeremiah's vision last

week of this righteous branch of David, this

Davidic prophet, priest, and king. Hope that

strengthens us in the past, in the present, and

guides our future. But this week, Malachi, right,

we went from major prophet to minor prophet.

Anyone know the differences between a major prophet

and a minor prophet? Anyone know? Length of book

is nothing super deep, right? Big book, long

book, major prophet. Minor prophet is just as

important as we see in that. Malachi brings us

to another dimension of hope. This El Peace.

A hope that is not only comforting, because we

need to be comforted by hope, but hope also...

And here's the rub. If we're okay with where

we are in this life right now, when it comes

to our discipleship growing to be more Christ

-like in our life, then that purification is

going to be really, really hard. Because one

thing we've all acknowledged, because you all

came to the table, is that you're sinners in

need of a Savior. And what does that mean? That

means there are issues, there are things in our

life that need to be purified out. That need

to be cleansed and cleaned. Jeremiah told us

what the Messiah will do. Malachi tells us what

the Messiah will make us become. There's future

tense in there. And this is an important shift

because Advent, as we learned last week, not

passive but active. We don't just look at the

manger and say, oh, that's cute. I don't know

anybody that has ever said that of a feeding

trough in a barn. But we look at the manger to

realize something different this morning. That

this baby king came to change us, to refine us,

and came to make us holy. And that is a lot.

And it's something, I guarantee you, when you

looked at your child, if you've been blessed

to have children, in that delivery room, in the

hospital, when you looked, I guarantee you that

Lori and Jim Holland, owner, did not look at

seven pound, eight ounce, I think that's... I

didn't know that was the joke. How many people

were seven pounds, eight ounces? I'm sure there

were some of you. Please, someone, don't let

me. Thank you, Randy. We were. That was a weird

place to laugh. Okay, but understand, I don't

think they looked at them or looked at me and

had those thoughts. No, they're looking and go,

okay, this is number two. We had Lynn. Now we

have Jim. Now we're done, right? Okay, we got

to go through the waking up. Hopefully he's not

colicky like Lynn was. You know, we think of

all those things. But think of what Jesus being

born, we think these things. It's not a passive

thing. It's what we're hoping for. So insert

that thought this morning. We are hoping to be

purified. And sometimes that is through the fire.

Hope is not passive, but it's transformational,

and that is active. So let's look first to the

hope from the past. So we're going to be in Malachi

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3. We're going to start with verse 1.

Again, we use the ESV, the English Standard Version

here. Feel free, if you brought one of another

translation, that is totally fine. Malachi chapter

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

3. So if you went to Matthew, you went too far.

Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament.

Hope from the past that God sends a messenger

in verse 1. 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

and the messenger of the covenant in whom you

delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord

of hosts. So right off the bat, I am sending

a messenger. This is active. Now, what did I

say? This is the last book of the Old Testament.

And then you go into kind of this season of darkness.

And what they mean by that is there wasn't any

more prophets really that stepped on the scene.

That Israel, they were just kind of in this space,

in this place. You see the Roman Empire start

to take over halfway through this dark season.

Malachi being the last prophetic voice, 400 years

of silence. For some of us with kids a certain

age, you hear two minutes of silence and your

mind's already going to something bad is going

on. Who is hurt? What did they break? How much

is it going to cost? 400 years of silence. There's

discouragement. There's spiritual compromise

going on. The temple becomes perverted. The temple

becomes about money and power and authority kind

of being in line with Rome. They're waiting for

restoration. They're waiting for this Messiah.

And friends, they didn't live 400 years anymore.

So what happened? You had generational disappointment.

Things not showing up. Things not happening the

way you told they were going to. Into this moment,

God speaks something fierce. I will send my messenger.

I will come to my temple. I will fulfill my word.

So this messenger, who is it? John the Baptist,

right? Yeah, John the Baptist. The New Testament

answers this clearly. Because Mark 1 .2 quotes

Malachi 3 .1 directly. Luke 1 .17 says he comes

in the spirit and power of Elijah. John the Baptist

is now the forerunner. He steps on the scene.

He clears the path. The voice in the wilderness

saying something very profound. Prepare the way

of the Lord. 400 years of silence and now a light

comes. You're going to hear more about that tonight.

In our theology, what we understand is this is

another piece of the covenant of grace. It's

unfolding. God is initiating. God is revealing.

God is acting. God is on the move. Hope from

the past reminds us that God prepares his people

for his coming. He always has and he always will,

even today. And maybe you need to hear that today,

that God is still on the move. Maybe you've been

sitting in your own 400 years of silence. Maybe

you've been discouraged. Maybe everything's gone

spiritually cold. Everything seems to be distracting.

And maybe God needs to speak into that with a

message. Prepare the way of the Lord. Notice,

it doesn't say, when Eli's ready. When Jim is

ready. When Don is ready. It's not, ready or

not, here I come. It's, I'm coming. Prepare the

way of the Lord, which is where we find ourselves

in the present. We find hope for the present,

the Lord who purifies. Active language, verses

2 and 3 of chapter 3. But who can endure the

day of his coming? And who can stand when he

appears? For he is like a refiner's fire, like

a fuller's soap. He will sit as a refiner and

a purifier of silver. And he will purify the

sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.

And they will bring offerings in righteousness

to the Lord. So I think we're right to go to

a fire. Whether it's a glass blower or somebody

else. For he's like a refiner's fire, like a

fuller's soap. These are not gentle images. Right?

I don't think. How many of you did the precious

moments thing? Right? Those little statues. You

can raise them while I'm proud. That's all good.

We didn't have this one. Right? Because it wouldn't

be cute. It's hard to put a nice face on something

going on like this. A refiner's fire or a fuller's

soap. The refiner's fire heats metal so intensely

that impurities rise to the top. So what? They

can be scraped off and discarded. A fuller soap

is a strong lye agent used to scrub and bleach

fabric clean. So there's a cleansing going on,

a scrubbing going on. Now, I don't know about

you, but I remember growing up. You guys, I'm

going to reintroduce you to my grandma Bonnie.

Remember her? She was like 4 '8", right, but

a ninja, okay? She's the one that when you would

talk back, she'd like out of nowhere hit you

right here. And I remember in junior high I asked

her why that was. And she looked at me and said,

because it doesn't leave a mark. And then just

walked away. I've never been more terrified in

my life. Right? She stood this high. I just remember

also growing up when she would give us a bath,

she would scrub us like she was trying to get

answers out of us. Right? I just remember like

after I was done going, am I bleeding? Because

it feels like it. Because she just wanted to

make sure that all of that stuff was off of our

bodies. Now, just so we're clear, like I was

really little. This wasn't like junior high because

that's weird, right? So this is like when you're

really little. These are things that are coming

out of therapy. But understand that when she

did that, she was being very active, right? She

was active in some of that, making sure we were

clean. I think we can use that same mentality

of what John the Baptist is telling us. He's

not going to come with hugs and kisses, right?

He's going to come with purification. He's going

to come with cleansing, much like the refiner

and the fuller. Malachi tells us the Messiah

doesn't simply arrive. He doesn't just show up

and say, I'm here. He purifies. That is the role

of the priest, the priesthood. We talked about

that last week. Malachi specifically says the

Messiah will refine the sons of Levi. Interesting.

What does that mean? In Israel, the priests were

the ones to be spiritual leaders. But in Malachi's

day, they had become corrupt, lazy, and half

-hearted in their worship. They made it about

them, not about Yahweh or the Lord. God's answer

is not, try harder, you'll get it. It's the Messiah

will come to cleanse. Now we have a catechism,

right? Reformed church, we have a heartable catechism

that helps us understand Christ our priest. Question

31. Question 31 teaches that Christ is our eternal

high priest who has offered himself as the perfect

sacrifice, continually intercedes for us, and

cleanses us from sin. So hear this today. The

messenger Malachi is telling you and me, 2025,

214 Ridge Road, you cannot purify yourself. The

Messiah himself will purify you. He is coming

to do a job. To purify his people because they

have become dirty. They have become tarnished.

They have become stain filled. And guess what?

I just described every one of our weeks. This

past seven days. We're dirty. We're stained.

We're in need of that purification. We're in

need of that cleansing. I don't know about you,

but that's hope for the present, the here and

now. For us today, refinement means four things.

God exposes us to what is impure. He removes

what is destructive. He strengthens what is holy.

He shapes us into a people that reflect him.

And I don't know about you, but there's the gut

punch. That when people see my life, not just

what I want them to see, but when they see my

life, do they see him? Refinement is not a punishment.

I think Jack said that up here. Refinement is

a preparation. For anyone who has walked through

a season of suffering, a season of self -inflicted

wounding, a season of sin, again, for those that

have walked through that, sometimes hope is hard

to grasp. Sometimes hope seems like this thing

that I'm trying to grab, but I can't. It's like

a moving target. But we need to understand something

about these seasons. Hope grows not in comfort.

It can't grow in comfort because then what is

our hope? Years. And then they will bring. Once

the priests are purified, worship is restored.

Once the people are refined, offerings become

acceptable again. I don't know about you, but

that tells us one of our goals in life. One of

our goals in the hope of Jesus is that we have

restored worship. Worship that is barrier -free,

distraction -free, free of ourselves that we

can give to God in worship. This was true for

Israel. This is true for the early church that

we just looked at in the book of Acts this fall.

It's true for us right here, right now. God refines

us so that our lives become worship, holy, pleasing,

and acceptable. The book of Romans reminds us,

12 .1, because it's giving us a hope. We worship

because we have hope. Not of just look what God

did or what God is doing, but God will do his

return. The refining work of Jesus continues

until the day he comes again. The Messiah's first

coming purifies our heart from guilt. The Messiah's

second coming will purify creation of all sin,

of all evil, of all decay. All the impurities

will be out. There will be no need for the refinement.

And Malachi points us forward to a day when every

impurity is gone, every injustice is judged,

every right is made wrong, and every heart fully

belongs to him. This is the future hope of Advent,

isn't it? This is what we're longing for, yet

we're slugging every day, some of us, harder,

sometimes deeper. in this struggle, knowing that

the hope is we will be made like him when we

see him again, 1 John 3 .2. So what do we do

for Advent now? Where do we take this from here?

How do we take this beyond the informational

meeting that we're about to have? Well, this

is the cross -shaped Advent I brought up last

week and I'll bring up next week. Remember that

lyric of you were born to die so one day I could

pray for you to save my life? I'm changing it

a bit this morning. That you were born to die

so we may be made new. Malachi shows us why.

The Messiah does not refine from a distance.

He doesn't lob a grenade. He refines by stepping

into your world. into my world, taking on flesh,

bearing our sin, carrying our impurities, and

rising up to make us clean. Hope is not just

that God forgives us, but hope that God will

transform us from the inside out. Advent points

to a Savior who comes with fire, not to destroy

you and me, but to refine us into what we were

meant and made to be. So my friends, let's be

refined by hope. How do we respond as a people

waiting for the Messiah who purifies? Three things.

First, we welcome his refining. Ouch. Lord, remove

what is not from you. We embrace his mercy. Thank

God. Right? Lord, cleanse me from your grace.

And we live in readiness. Lord, make me fit.

For your presence. Friends, this Advent, may

the refining fire of Christ give you hope, not

fear, not shame, not resistance, but hope. Hope

that he is shaping us into his likeness. Because

remember, the God who came the God who cleanses,

the God who is coming again, the God who is our

El Peace, who is our hope, who is our Messiah,

is with you even now. So lay it down, pick him

up, and get to work. Let's pray.