Malachi

Good morning. We're going to be in the book of

Malachi. It's the last book of the Old

Testament, and you can find it in your copy of your scripture

on your seat on page 753. Starting in verse 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?

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? When you offer blind animals and

sacrifice, is this? Is that not evil?

And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not

evil? Present that to your governor,

will he accept you, or show you favor, Says Lord of Hosts.

And now entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to

us. With such a gift from your hand,

will he show favor to any of you, Says Lord of Hosts.

Oh, that you were one among if they're Oh, that there were one

among you who would shut the doors, that you might not Kindle

Fire on my altar in vain. I have no pleasure in you, says

the Lord of Hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your

hand. For from the rising of the sun

to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in

every place instance will be offered to my name.

And a pure offering for my name will be great among the nations,

says the Lord of Hosts. But you profane it when you say

that the Lord's table is polluted, and its fruit, that

is, its food, may be despised. But you say what a weirdness

this is, and you snort at it, says the Lord of Hosts.

You bring what has been taken by violence, or is lame or sick,

and this you bring as your offering.

Shall I accept that from your hand?

Says the Lord. Cursed be the cheat who has a

male in his flock and bows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord

what is blemished. For I am a great king, says the

Lord of Hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

And if we can turn chapter 3, we're going to start in verse 6.

For I the Lord do not change. Therefore you, O children of

Jacob, are not consumed from the days of your father's.

You have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them.

Return to me and I will return to you, says Lord of Hosts.

But you say, how shall we return?

Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me.

But you say, how have we robbed you and your ties and

contributions? You are cursed with a curse, for

you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be

food and my house, and thereby put me to the test, says the

Lord of hosts. If I will not open the windows

of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there

is no more need, We're going to skip down to verse 16 of the

same chapter. Then those who fear the Lord

spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and

heard them, and the book of Remembrance was written before

them, before him, of those who fear the Lord, and esteemed His

name. They shall be mine, says the

Lord of hosts. And the day when I make up my

treasured possession, and I will spare them, as a man spares his

son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the

distinction between the righteous and the wicked,

between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

Chapter 4, verse one. For behold, the day is coming,

burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all the

evildoers will be stubble. That day that is coming shall

set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave

them neither rot nor branch. But for you who fear my name,

the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall, and you

shall shred down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the

soles of your feet on that day when I act, says Lord of hosts.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the word of the Lord on our own

poor city, family and friends. How we doing?

Good. My name is Tanner.

I'm happy to be with you, y'all Port City.

There's just a few things we want for your life.

We want a big God. That's what you need.

You need a real and relevant God.

You need iron that sharpens iron.

You might have heard that phrase in a football team or something

like that. It came from the Bible.

Amen. You need people in your life.

We're going to help you. But for iron to sharpen iron,

you got to actually get around each other.

That's called the church. The third thing you need is a

mission, something bigger than yourself to be a part of.

And that is the mission of God. And we just want to connect

those dots through God's word here at Port City for the glory

of God, the good of Norfolk. And we don't really know what

we're doing, but we're trying. Amen.

That's what we're all about. And if you want to learn more

about our church, starting point next week is a great step.

We would love to have you at that.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray and then we're

going to dive into Malachi, which are last of the minor

prophets. Little bit sad.

It's been an awesome journey. You could go back, listen to

them all, but I'm really excited because this is a great way to

end it. All right, let's pray.

Our Father, we love you. Thank you for your word.

God, we continue to beg you to give us clear sight of you.

Give us fear of the Lord. Give us honor.

Give us a big God. God, you are big.

We need you to illuminate that for us today through your

scriptures. So God, what we know not right

now, would you teach us what we have not would you give us and

who we are not? Would you make us let the words

of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in

your sight, our rock and our strength and everybody agree

with it. Say it, Amen.

Have you all ever been in an argument with somebody you love,

like a spouse or a friend or a teenager?

Amen somebody and you're you're kind of having a discussion

where you see a thread of what they're doing in everything and

they go, when did I do that? Have you have y'all ever had

that where the argument is like so clear to you?

And then they say, but when did I do that though?

And you're like in your head, you're like every second of

every day. But now that you're asking for

like proof, I really don't know, you know what I'm saying.

And you're a little tongue tied of like what?

Like you feel a little like, and then you're getting frustrated.

Proof. You want proof.

But in your mind it's a thread that's in everything.

Some of you are looking at me like this argument has happened

this morning. Some of you are like, what is he

talking about? In the book of Malachi, this

happens between the priests and the people and the Lord.

The book is structured around six question and answer

responses. And what you're going to pick up

on is the people, the priests, they say things like, when did

we do that? How did we do that?

And what they're leveraging is technicality.

Well, technically we made some offerings.

Technically we're tithing. And what is the thread behind it

all that the Lord can see through and we can as we read it

is y'all don't love him. Y'all don't honor him.

Y'all don't fear him. You don't care for his name.

His name doesn't weigh on your souls with love and delight.

It doesn't impact what you do. Actually, this God that you say

you worship is getting smaller and what he claims over your

life is getting smaller. Watch this.

What we're going to see in Malachi, I'm going to show it to

you on a chart, is either God is going to get smaller and less

relevant in your life or bigger and more relevant.

That's what's going to happen. Check this out.

For some people in the book of Malachi, they need to wake up

because when God is small, only part of life is technically

worship. Think Sundays.

Think when I'm reading the Bible, think what I'm giving,

think when I'm technically in a space or time of worship, right?

And thus God's future appearing will being bring fear to those

people. All right.

For another group of people in the book of Malachi, for those

of you who love Jesus, this is This Is Us.

It should encourage us that when God is big, not just Sunday is

worship, not just when you read the Bible, but all, all of life

is worship. Amen.

And as God gets bigger and more and more of your life becomes

worship, God's future appearing will bring healing.

So that's what this book is going to do.

It's designed to wake up people for whom God is getting less

relevant and less big. If God feels like a technicality

to you, hopefully this book will wake wake you up.

But if God is big and life is worship, but life'll hard, this

book will encourage you. Does that make sense?

And hopefully by the end you walk out of here with a gigantic

God and you realize when I'm brushing my teeth, I'm

worshiping. When I'm married, I'm

worshiping. Everything I do is worship, not

just when I'm reading the Bible or out of service.

Amen. That's encouraging though.

And even if you don't follow Jesus here today or not, a lot

of this makes sense. Hopefully it makes sense to you

that if God is as big as the Bible claims he is, that he

would impact more than just when we're in this room.

Amen. Like, and that's why a lot of

Jesus's ministry is so cool to a lot of people because he was the

first human to live with God at his actual size and his heart,

but he was also God is crazy. I digress.

Let me let me let me get into the to the sermon.

So because questions play such a role in the book, we're going to

structure the sermon around 4 questions.

All right, is God big or small to you?

Is all of your life a living sacrifice?

Third one is there. And then the 4th 1 is, Oh yeah,

it's does God's future appearing make you happy or or fearful and

#4 what do you do if you're ready for a radical change in

your life? If you are ready, let me hear

you say I'm ready. All right.

Is God big or small to you? Is God big or small to you?

Let's start with Malachi chapter 1, verses 6 through 8.

Malachi 1:6–8

This is what it says, A son honors his father, and a servant

his master. If I then am a father, where's

my honour? And I am a master, where's my

fear? Says the Lord of Hosts to you, O

priest, who despised my name. But you say, how have we

despised your name? 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?

When you offer blind animals and sacrifice, is that not evil?

And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not

evil? Present that to your governor.

Will he accept you or show you favor?

Says the Lord of hosts. You all the the God of the

Scriptures from the first pages speaks things into existence.

I did a little research this morning to make sure what I'm

about to tell you is accurate. At any given time in the world,

there could be up to 20,000 flights occurring concurrently,

which means at the same time at any given time there can be up

to 2000 thunderstorms occurring concurrently.

Your. Body pumps 2000 gallons of blood

a day. That's what your heart does.

2000 gallons. So kids, just imagine a gallon

of milk that your Mama makes you bring in from the from the

imagine 2000 of those full of blood.

That's what your hearts doing. God is navigating complexities

you would be mind blown about every second of every day.

It's crazy. That's the God of the scriptures

and what these priests were doing and they're in

relationship with this guy. They claim to be in covenant

relationship like a spouse, spouse type relationship.

That's what it means to know God.

They are bringing to him the animals in their herd that are

sick, got a broken leg, that are lame, blind and they're saying,

but we're worshiping. We make his sacrifices.

You hear the spirit of technicality and the way they're

approaching this conversation are y'all are y'all tracking

with that. It's just insanity to us as we

read it. And one thing we've got to feel

throughout this sermon, y'all, 'cause I could hear somebody

being like God is a little like, where's my honor?

Where's my this? Where's my that?

Is God like needy? Hold up now.

Yeah. What you got to understand about

the big God of the Scriptures? He's not insecure and he's not

needy. He is full and overflowing, OK?

You need him. He don't need you OK, your the

the the idea here is is God is good to you by being committed

to you seeing him accurately. It would be unloving of him to

not be committed to him. Does that make sense?

Like if what satisfies your soul is him.

He doesn't love you if he doesn't tell you to be satisfied

in him, right. So when he demands honor.

It's not like a distant deity. This is a relationally committed

God who is sustaining you through common grace, like the

2000 gallons of blood, but also to you relationally through the

sending of His Son, Jesus Christ.

OK, so this is a God who loves you.

This is a God who is for you. And the way He is for you is by

allowing you to see His greatness and orbiting around

that. He is the one being for whom if

He wasn't committed to himself by being committed to you, He

would not love you. Does that make sense?

We just got to have that anchored in our mind.

Or if we did this, like, where's my honor?

Dads? You do not have that permission

to talk to your kids that way. God does OK, so that's the first

thing. So God is either what we're

going to see increasingly getting big or he is getting

small throw up the the next portion of Scripture there for

us or the next. A big God, sorry a big God

desires genuine passion. So what God is looking for

through the the offering system isn't just technically that

you're worshipping him, it's that he wants the worship to

reflect your love for him. He's not just looking for, did

you do your your worship today. He's looking for love through

it. We see later in verse starting

in verse 11 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.

Well, you profane it when you say that the Lord's table is

polluted and it's fruit that it's it's food may be despised,

but you say what is a weary? What weariness does this?

And you snort at it says the Lord of hosts.

You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and

that you bring as your offering. Y'all what?

What God is trying to show is that He has this place of

passion and He wants to be seen accurately.

Y'all and he, he, he sees through their sick.

They're finding the sick one in their herd and bringing it to

him. They're like, come on, man.

But technically we. Worshipped you and God is saying

I see right through that and he compares to the governor the the

anytime you use a rhetorical question, the answer is obvious.

You would not bring that to your governor, but you're bringing it

to the God of heaven. Are you with me?

And he says I'm a great king says the Lord of hosts.

So God is trying to get them to be honest with themselves.

And he actually even says in verse verse 10, oh that there

were one among you who would shut the doors and not Kindle

Fire on my altar. So actually he's saying passion

for me would look like seeing this corrupt system of

technicality and shutting it down.

Y'all I wonder for some churches in America and if this church

ever gets this way if passion for God's name would be

frustration at. Whack.

Worship of God, are you with me? Like there's a time and a place

for like, yo, we don't we're not loving him through what we're

we're faking right here. He's looking for a genuine love

of his name that shows itself not just in checking the box,

but in actually a a love and an adherence to his ways and what

he loves. Are y'all with me And if we ever

get there, if I'm ever up here not sharing his word with you,

if anyone up here is proclaiming not Christ but themselves.

If it feels like we're off, ask a question.

You are people of God and you play a role in this as well.

But it is clear that he has an issue with the priest because

they are leading them to treat God as irrelevant.

Are y'all tracking with that? The priests kind of are the

first ones to see God as big, but in our text they're the

first ones to think that God is small.

So y'all. The first thing I just want to

push us on for a few minutes before we move on is that God

desires to be as big as He really is in your life.

It's not that God isn't big. It's that.

Functionally, he isn't always big in our lives.

You can get to a place where God is real, but he's not relevant.

Y'all with me? He's real enough for me to know

things, but he's not relevant when it comes to work.

I got to make my money. He can be real and you know what

his word says, but it doesn't weigh on how you parent.

It doesn't weigh on how you forgive your spouse.

It doesn't weigh on what you do. You just know it, but you don't

live it because it doesn't matter to you.

So the first thing I want to do, and again, some of y'all don't

follow Jesus, which is totally fine.

But hopefully, like Einstein was this way, he would look at the

stars, be like, OK, like he kind of believed in intelligent

design pretty quickly. But then he would look at

Christians, the ones who know this God through Jesus, and he

just didn't respect what he saw in the community.

Or Gandhi was this way. It's like when I see the

Christians, I just, I can't, I reject the whole system based on

what I'm seeing. We all, what we've seen in the

minor prophets is when God is real but not relevant.

That lack of ethical living flows from that.

Does that make sense? So it's like once God is small,

he doesn't shape how I live. So I live how I want and then no

one takes us seriously. Does that make sense?

They see how we live and they don't see a big God behind that.

Does that make sense? So the lack of ethical living

flows from how big your God is. And even if I, as I say how big

your God is, I don't mean like your personal one.

I mean like the real one, true living godfather, son, spirit.

But it's functional size in your heart, in your soul.

So the first thing I want to do is just tell you that the goal

of your life is for the God you love in your heart to match the

God you know in your brain. That's the goal is for his size

to align with his actual size and it to actually be that way

in your heart. And for some of the mighty

people in scripture and in world history, what we see in them is

they just live like those were aligned.

They lived more aligned than we did and we aspire to it.

But really what you aspire to is not what they did, but the God

they saw. Because if we live like he's

that big, it'll all the same stuff will pop.

Are you with me? They get in alignment with it

and they go. So let me ask you some

diagnostic questions at the end of the service.

I'm going to end with here's kind of a way for your God to

increase, for God to increase in size in your heart.

For right now, I just want to beg the question, OK, here's the

first one. Do you just tremble at His word?

In the Scriptures, when God is big, you tremble at His word.

Like God is speaking to me through His word.

He's telling me to do things. He's speaking truth over my

identity. Do you just tremble when He

calls you the beloved? When he says you are His, that

your sin is separated from you? Do you tremble when you read who

you should be and you're just not?

Which leads to the second question.

Does God's holiness, His bigness, His size just push you

to confession of sin? Yeah, I know.

Many people who sat in churches for years and just don't confess

sin. It's not a regular part of your

diet to other people or to God. And I just want to say y'all,

it's just a natural expression of seeing who God is makes you

just confess who you're not. That's how that works.

It's not that you're aiming to confess.

It's the natural byproduct of seeing something big and

beautiful and displacing you. Just respond with I am not that.

Are y'all with me, y'all. Does God's word shape how you

weight on things? Does God's size.

Or are we just the most like man?

Life's just practical. I got to do what I got to do.

You know what I mean? Does God's means of how to go

about things shape how you go about them?

Or is life too practical for that for you?

Does life feel? Too practical to take God's word

seriously would be another way to ask that.

Is God's word not relevant to how you actually live and make

your money and treat Co workers? Like if I stopped the gossip

culture would I not get a promotion?

Have you ever thought about things like that?

Does it play into everything you do in your workplace?

There's a lot more. Questions I could ask, but I'm

going to start right there. I'm going to start right there.

I just want you to hear that God's goal for your life is to

get bigger and bigger and bigger.

And the next question is natural from that.

Let's go to point #2 is your entire life a living sacrifice?

Is your entire life, Somebody say entire life, Entire life,

y'all? So naturally what flows is when

God is big, he covers everything.

When he's small, you start to section him off to certain

areas. OK.

And in the text we're going to deal with two areas.

The first one is divorce and the second one is money.

Neither of which the sermon is not a divorce sermon or a money

sermon, but he's putting fingers on the ways that they're kind of

locating God in only parts of their life.

Does that make sense? Kind of the technicality

mindset. So let's look at the the divorce

one first. It comes in chapter 2, verse 13.

In this second thing you do, you cover the Lords altar with

tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the

offerings or accepts it with favor from your hand.

But you say, why does he not? Because the Lord was witness

between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been

faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by

covenant. Did he not make them one with

the portion of the Spirit in their union?

And what was the one God seeking godly offspring.

So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be

faithless to the wife of your youth.

Take a deep breath. This is not a divorced sermon,

OK? We have preached on that before

from the Sermon on the Mount. Y'all, in general, the

Scriptures like marriage speaks to the union God wants to have

with his people, which is a covenant.

It is an unbreakable bond. So yes, when divorce occurs, it

breaks God's heart. It is not in alignment with

reality as God intended it. And you know, Jesus talks about

a concession with things like adultery, all that.

Okay, but what these people were doing is that again,

technicality. I I gave her a divorce papers,

didn't I? I did, I did the the law says I

could do this and they were with that heart doing that, but then

have the audacity to go to the altar and weep and say, Lord,

where you at in my life? He's like, I'll tell you where

I'm at. I'm by the night stand by them

divorce papers that you just filled out in the red ink.

Are you with me? So his he's like, do you see the

inconsistency there? Like do you see?

But again, they're trying to say, well technically I did

right by her because I filled out the papers.

Are y'all tracking with that? OK.

The second one that God puts his finger on is money, chapter 3,

verse 6. For I the Lord, do not change.

Therefore, you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed from the

days of your father's. 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? Well, man, rob God, yet you are

robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed

you and your ties and contributions?

You are cursed with the curse, for you are robbing me, the

whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the

storehouse that there may be food in my house, and thereby

put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts.

If I will not open the windows of heaven for you, and pour down

for you a blessing until there's no more need.

Money. Some of y'all's bodies getting

anxious, I say that word. Y'all.

What was happening is that they had the mindset that to give was

to lose. And this is still true for the

New Testament church, even though we're going to talk about

some things that are similar and different.

Y'all, the mindset is giving is losing.

So I'm going to hold back what I give so I lose less.

And he's saying bring the full tie then see if I don't provide

y'all. Just to be clear, in the New

Testament era, Jesus has fulfilled the law.

OK, so the tithe was an Old Testament principle giving the

1st 10% of what you get back to the Lord.

So in the new covenant era, Jesus has fulfilled the law.

And the way we relate to the tithe is more like a guide or an

example, OK? It's less conscious, binding and

commanded as the Old Testament era was now.

Does Jesus? Make us more generous or less

you know, does the fact that Christ died for us that he was

rich, yet for your sake he became poor.

Is he going to make us less generous or more?

The New Testament is always assumed God's people will be

generous. The New Testament is more

concerned with your motives than whether you give.

It's assuming you do. Jesus assumes you will give.

He wants the power of money to be broken in your life as a fake

false God that it can become and giving us a way to love your

neighbor in the New Testament. Now that is why a poor city.

We do recommend you all that you give routinely that you give

spontaneously. I hope you have margin in your

life where you can give to needs in the city as they arise.

Giving regularly helps kind of flex the generosity muscle in

your soul that we love to think we're more generous than we are

usually. So by giving regularly, that

helps build that habit and then having margin in your life

allows you to be spontaneously giving to to people, needs,

nonprofits, all the things. But what we have in common as

the New Testament church is that we too can begin to think that

giving is loss. Do you see that?

God. Says put me to the test.

He's basically saying you can trust me.

I want to be very clear, we are not a prosperity church, OK?

The prosperity gospel mindset is that if you give, God will bless

you. And usually that just means your

life's going to get better. OK?

You could just open your Bible and read it.

Your life don't always get better when you follow the Lord.

Amen, somebody. But the flip side of that is if

you do begin to think that giving is just losing, you've

missed the whole point. Y'all think about like the the

the similar principle just to go to a different concept is the

the Old Testament concept of Sabbath.

OK, the idea is you give up 1, you work 6, give up one, but God

will multiply what you do in the six.

Hello Chick-fil-A somebody OK, the idea is I'll do more in six

than you can do in seven. But if you begin to look at your

time or your money like losing it is just losing.

You don't know the God of the Scriptures because he calls us

to give as gain. Now how that works out

mathematically, that's part of this thing called trust and

mystery. OK, but the God of the

Scriptures is clear that you could trust me.

And even here today, if you have never given God in some kind of

way of saying put me to the test.

If you've never given regularly, put them to the test.

If you've never sacrificially given, put him to the test.

And don't hear me saying that your life is going to get better

and you're going to get blessed. I'm saying just the mathematics

of gospel calculus in your soul have got to change.

And they're not going to change till they change.

Because naturally, we're just Americans with our money, we

tend to spend, maybe save, maybe give.

The Bible just. Flips that it thinks like give

then save and then you live OK and the more you can get that in

your DNA over time it'll make sense.

And there are many people in this room who do not profit from

the church in any way shape or form.

Many of the men who stand up here and teach do not that would

love to talk to you about gospel principles of generosity and

money and all the things and and I pray that that will bless you.

So talk to the people in this room about about spending money.

Can I say one more money thing I was telling Ron this this week.

Here's what I've noticed about money journeys.

This is me y'all. I didn't know nothing.

I was 21 emailing a friend's dad, like should I get a credit

card? I didn't have financial

literacy. I didn't have a wasn't really

raised to understand those things with my family.

Then you go through phases where you listening to podcasts or

Dave Ramsey or whatever it is you do OK.

Then you're like calling people like did you know you could save

money? Did you know there's this thing

called a budget? Did you know did you know in

your height? Then you get in your 30s and now

you get like weird jaded where you're like skeptical of any

process. Like, no, don't act like that

stuff didn't help you land somewhere.

I'm not saying you've got to like glorify whatever system.

So like maturity is you don't glorify a system.

You don't tell people exactly what to do.

But if somebody is on a journey where they're learning good

gospel principles of generosity and stuff, encourage them.

You know what I'm saying? Like you want to create a space

where like, man, I'm so glad learn like the the Bible

principles, do whatever you got to do to get there.

I'm here to help. But don't be the jaded old

people were like, well, I've been through the money journey

and I'm on the mountaintop and I could tell you what to do and

what not to do. And that guy is a dummy.

You know, it's like, you know, good and well, at 28 you were

texting your Mama. Have you ever heard of this?

And the you know what I'm saying you did envelope method.

Be quiet. So some of y'all in Jesus name

get a budget, others of y'all, I love you, God bless you.

But the point is y'all, giving with the Lord is not losing.

We could trust Him with our money.

But let me tell you what's behind all of it.

Those are symptoms of the problem y'all.

The point is when your God is small, you start to worship God

on a technicality. But when God is big, He covers

everything. Watch what they say y'all.

This is at the heart of all of it right here, chapter 3 verse

13. Y'all this is crazy.

They said this and it's showing their money, it's showing their

divorce stuff, but this is it. Your words have been hard

against me says the Lord, but you say how have we spoken

against you? You have said it is vain to

serve God. What is the profit of our

keeping his charge of walking as in mourning before the Lord of

hosts. It is vain.

There's no point. Doesn't help, doesn't make a

difference. It's vain.

They were. Pragmatists, they're like it

just don't work not doing it. And notice it used the phrase

Lord of hosts. One thing you can go do as you

reread Malachi later, the phrase Lord of hosts is used over 20

times in 55 verses. Lord of hosts could also be

translated God of Angel armies. Hello, Chris Tomlin, the God of

Angel armies is always by my side.

That comes from this title. It's being purposefully used.

The Israelites are under Persian rule at this time.

So post to Syria, post Babylon, they're under Persian rule

around the four hundreds. And he keeps using the phrase

Lord of hosts because the God that they think is small is the

Lord of hosts, right? And then to the group that is

still trusting him and life is hard and the people of God

aren't demonstrating God's goodness, he's saying, look, I'm

still the Lord of hosts because there is a group that God wants

to encourage. You want to see some encouraging

verses if you love the Lord of hosts.

And sometimes you're tempted to do the gospel calculus of is

this worth it? Read these verses with me.

Go to verse 16. Then.

Those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.

The Lord paid. Attention and heard them, and a

book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared

the Lord and esteemed His name. This is what God says.

Y'all. They shall be mine, says the

Lord of hosts. In the day when I make up my

treasure possession, I will spare them as a man spares a son

who serves him. Then once more you shall see the

distinction between the righteous and the wicked,

between one who serves God and one who does not serve him,

y'all. Book of Remembrance.

Book of Remembrance. Let's go to point. #3 and we'll

talk about this book of remembrance.

Is God the thought of God appearing, bringing you joy or

fear? Is the God of thought of God

returning, appearing, bringing you fear or joy?

Yo, what's happening in this book is for one group.

God is getting bigger. He covers everything.

When God is big in your life, he doesn't just apply to your

marriage. He doesn't just apply to your

your giving. He applies to everything.

When you're brushing your teeth, you're worshiping God.

When you're on your way to work, you're worshiping God.

Life is worship for some of y'all just want you to hear life

is worship. Can we say that phrase you

already on 3123 Life is worship. When I was a kid we used to say

ball is life. Which is a dumb phrase, by the

way, but the idea is that everything is about basketball.

When you're at home, you watch videos of Kobe.

When you you buy those shoes, you do this.

All of life oriented around basketball.

And what the book of Malachi is pushing us towards is not that

Sundays are worship, not that Bible reading is worship, not

that prayer is worship, or even listening to Chris Tomlin is

worship. It's that life is worship.

It's not that those things aren't, it's that everything

else is. Are you with me?

So you don't need my job to be closer to God.

You don't need to be a missionary to be closer to God.

You can love the Lord when you brush your teeth and you go to

work and you forgive your Co worker and you.

Everything you do brings glory to the Lord.

The people of. Malachi made the mistake of

thinking God only cared about the sacrifices, the offerings,

the tithes, the divorce papers. And what I'm telling you is God

cares about everything and that should just excite you that the

Lord wants to live life with you.

Sorry y'all I'm I'm out of source a little bit.

You can write down Romans 12/1 and two, at that last point I

used the phrase living sacrifice.

If you don't know what that means, go read those verses.

But the basic idea of the New Testament is that your whole

life is worship. And though that idea of being a

living sacrifice is that as opposed to putting a lame

offering like a a broken leg animal up on the altar, you put

yourself on the altar while alive.

And sometimes you got to put yourself up there kicking and

screaming. When you got to go tell a boss

you blew it. When you got to say sorry to a

friend, it might feel like you're kicking and screaming,

but you are getting on the altar because God is worth it.

Sometimes when you give, it's going to feel like you kicking

and screaming. Sometimes when you share the

gospel, when you all of life is worship and it's a living

sacrifice because you are living life with God on the go, putting

yourself on the altar. So for the group where God is

getting smaller, part of what the minor prophets are supposed

to do is wake them up. Somebody say wake up.

OK, let's read chapter 3 verses one through 4.

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 whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the

Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of

his coming? Who can stand when he appears

free is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap.

We'll start right there. Some of y'all know that the

person who comes before Jesus is somebody say it out loud.

Who's the person that precedes Jesus?

New Testament, John the Baptist, oh he is the Savior, Amen.

John the Baptist precedes him. John the Baptist is predicted

twice in this book here in chapter 3.

That's the messenger that he is preparing the way for King

Jesus. It happens again in chapter 4

verses one through 3 says I'll send my servant like Elijah

before you. And what the minor prophets do

y'all is they envision a near future and a far future.

The near future is when Jesus would come and John the Baptist

would come before him. The far future is when Jesus

comes back. So we live post John the

Baptist, Jesus coming the first time but before he comes back

the second time. So this book still applies to

us. Does that make sense?

The way it applies most to us is not to to think about John the

Baptist coming the Jesus coming the first time, but it's to

think about him coming back, which leads me to if God is

increasingly small, that should fill you with fear that he's

coming back. Are you with me?

As we've talked about all throughout the series, the day

of the Lord is coming. The day when whether we live

with all of life is worship or we just broke it down into

smaller little pieces on a technicality will be exposed.

So part of what? This book is trying to do is

wake you up if you are living like God is small.

It's not true. And when he comes back, you'll

see that he applied to everything.

You'll see that it applied with what you did with all of your

time. You'll see that applied with

everything you did, all the time, with everybody, every

relationship, every argument, every favoritism, everything.

All of it. It all matters.

But to the. Second group is to encourage us

to keep remembering that he sees it all.

Let's talk about this book of remembrance that we talked

about. The Bible says y'all, that the

Lord writes a book to remember those who fear his name.

Y'all, let me tell you who that is.

That's what we call the church. The church are those who fear

his name and God sees you. He literally writes a book about

your faith. First, Peter would say your

faith is more precious than gold.

The idea is that God is watching your life, and when you fight

for faith, whether it's in a technically spiritual worship

moment, He sees you when you're raising your hands in worship,

but he sees you when you say sorry.

He sees you when you live in alignment with his ways all day,

every day, and he remembers it and writes it down in a book

church. Do you look at your life like

God finds it beautiful and he's writing down what you do?

Yo, the church are the people who stir one another up and say

it ain't vain, y'all. It is worth following this God.

We could trust him and it all matters.

We're the ones who look at the single people and say, don't you

settle, don't you settle, it's worth it, you can wait.

We're the ones who look at each other and say, y'all, we could

trust the Lord with our money and our time.

We're the ones who look at each other one we're suffering and

say, don't you pull away, we need you.

I know it's hard and I don't know why it's happening, but I

love you. We're the ones who look at each

other, who start to slip and we say hey man, bring it back.

The ones who say God's word that don't apply to me anymore.

We say yes it does. We're the ones who encourage

each other. We're the ones who challenge

each other. We're the ones who say it's

worth it and when you get in your feelings, it's worth it to

keep trusting the Lord's way. Y'all?

One of my favorite lines. This guy says I promise heaven's

got a playlist. He says I promise.

That's my favorite placement. Faithful over famous.

This is what he's trying to say. He's an artist and he wants to

be on God's playlist. He wants to be in the Book of

Remembrance. When you live that way, you live

different. You live different.

But if you live to be on the world's playlist, you live

different. Are you with me?

So the question is, which playlist are you trying to be on

in your life? Because if you just want bosses,

Pats on the backs, and you want people to like you, you're going

to get it. That's kind of what life tells

us. Is that what you seek?

You kind of find and what the Scriptures are saying is you can

live in such a way where God sees you and God is pleased with

you and what comes of that in your outputs of life?

Let him handle that. But what if you hit every goal

you ever wanted and you wasted your life?

So y'all, I'm. Trying to say heaven got a

playlist. I want to.

That's my favorite placement. Sometimes after I preach that,

I'm like, Lord, I hope you're listening to that sermon in

heaven because I didn't feel like, you know, I'm like Laura.

And when I see a viral preaching clip and I'm like, well, am I?

I want to be on heaven's playlist.

And I hope the same for you. Y'all.

We live in a world that's trying to get us to be famous.

And I'm saying faithful over famous.

Amen, Church, don't give up. Let's go to the last point.

Let's go to the last point. What if you are ready for a

drastic change? What if you're ready?

For a drastic change, there's some of y'all that have been

coming, this entire series of minor prophets and don't yet

know Jesus. Something has hit you at some

point, has challenged you, has encouraged you.

You see Jesus in a new way. You see morality and ethics and

how beautiful it all is supposed to be.

You see the coming day of the Lord.

You're sobered now and all this stuff has connected.

And for you, I'll just say if you're ready for a drastic

change, if you want God to be big, if you want all of life to

be worshipped. Your next step is just to

repent. It's to repent.

It's to turn from your sin and turn to God.

The other group of. People in this room are

believers where your God just needs to get bigger.

And you're thinking, how do I do that?

How does God increase in size? The good news for us is that for

those of us who need to repent, believe, and for those of us who

want God to increase in size, what we need to do is the same

thing. The primary way that this

happens, that you repent, believe, or that God increases

in size is your meditation upon the person of Jesus Christ, the

person. Y'all throw that chart back up

there, Isaac. Y'all Here's what's so crazy

about the scriptures. OK, what if I told you that what

Jesus did, y'all wasn't just give us a set of steps of how to

get better or whatever? Like what if Jesus lived the

side of this chart we should be but didn't, and then gives the

other side of the chart the victory?

What if Jesus is the person who lived with the big God?

What if Jesus is the only human being whoever lived where all of

life is worshipped? What if as we hear this sermon,

we naturally think of ourselves? Which makes sense, I do too, and

where we need to grow and what area and all that is good.

But what if the point of the scriptures isn't to give you a

path as much as it is to shine on the one hero?

Y'all, Jesus is the one who feared the Lord, esteemed his

name, honored him all of life, was worshipped every second his

whole life. He gets to the end of his life.

He's excited. John 17 Father, I want to be in

your presence again. If you could take this cup of

wrath, that would be great, but not my will yours be done.

Jesus is the one person who lived with the big God.

He is the one human being who lived perfectly with God at the

center at all times, perfectly in obedience.

And what he does Y'all is He gifts that victory to us who

were the ones who live with a small God at best.

God is not relevant to us. God is not real to us.

We are the ones who should have been on that cross for the way

we've lived. There shouldn't be a.

Book of remembrance, of my faith in my life.

There should be a book of all of my sins, right?

There should be a different book.

You could take that down, Isaac. There should be a book of all

the ways I blew it, the things I've said to my spouse, the

things I do at work, the corners I cut, the ways I just want to

be famous. The point is, is that we are

living with a small guy. But there is.

One who live with the big God, who offers you his victory, who

offers you what you did not live.

That's a gift. That's the gospel.

The gospel is a gift of what Christ has done for you that you

can't do for yourself. The gospel is about Jesus the

King who lived perfectly with the big God and at the end of

his life he got killed like he blew everything, like he was

living like God was irrelevant so that those who blew it could

have an opportunity to be brought into the family.

If you hear me saying that God will love you if God gets

bigger, you missed the sermon. OK, you got things to work on,

but more than you need a path, you need a victory given to you.

You need a gift, y'all. The gospel is a gift.

And there's much in your life. God will get bigger, He will

increase, but it's not going to primarily be through your

willpower. It's going to be through you

understanding this Jesus and what He's done and who He is and

how He wants to breathe this into your life.

And even as you go meditate on the scriptures and attempt to

tremble at them. You won't tremble enough, right?

Even on your trembling day, you ain't trembling enough.

So do we put our faith in our trembling?

No, we tremble at the one who gives us His trembling, and then

we tremble with him trembling in our trembling.

Does that make sense? We need grace.

Even on your best day, God ain't going to be big enough.

He's bigger than your best day. Bigness, Starbucks coffee

hitting, He's still bigger than that.

So we can't leave here confident that God's going to get bigger.

We get confident that the God who is infinitely big is

infinitely committed to you. Even when you treat him like

he's small, that will make him bigger.

I don't make you want to trust him when that Co worker gossips

behind your back again. Y'all what?

Norfolk needs is a big God. What Norfolk needs is a

stumbling church who's broken, but pointing them to a God who

can displace and dislodge. And they're going to tell you

that it doesn't apply to their life.

You can say I know because I used to think that too, but it

does. And you can trust Him and you

can wait on this and you can think like that and you can say

you're sorry and you can do this and be like, no, I can't.

And you're going to find yourself telling somebody else

how God is real and relevant, even though you feel like you're

struggling for God to be real and relevant.

You see how that works? You're never going to arrive,

but you are on a journey full of the Spirit church.

And again, if you are not in Christ y'all, you are not being

invited to be perfect. You don't have to commit to God

living X big the rest of your life.

You have to say this God is good, he is right, He has saved

me. I want to follow him.

I want to trust him and I want to join some people doing that

and I will do what he says I will.

I will trust him. So some of y'all, it's time.

The day of the Lord is coming at the end of our days.

It's all going to be shown like did we live like all of life was

worship or just I hope the the people I pity most in this room

is the ones that are still just that's my hour a week, you know,

check box. It's not that that makes you a

bad person. It's that you're missing what

God wants for your life. Does that make sense?

Like he wants it all to connect. He wants to be big so that your

life can be full. That's my prayer for you.

Let's pray together. Our Father, we love you.

You are big, you are good, you are glorious.

God, sin can just create a fog where we can't see you.

I pray for the church in this room.

I pray for those who you have a book of remembrance on right

now. God, I pray that you would

encourage them, exhort them. I pray you would increase in

size. But God, I pray as we think

about all the ways we want you to get bigger in our game plan

and reading your word and repentance and all the things.

God, I just pray that we would see Christ crucified.

I pray you would see the gift of a big God to us.

God, I pray for my friends who don't yet know you would.

Today be the day, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you

breakthrough God, please breakthrough.

You are big enough to show them yourself with clarity that they

might repent and believe. Would you do it?

For your beautiful name we pray. Amen.