Malachi 2:17-3:5 "Pulled Over By God"

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Thank you, guys.

Thank you, James.

You wrote a beautiful song.

Grateful for that.

It helps us to feel and to see, as this passage will this morning, where the hurt is.

And where the hope is at the same time.

Thank you for that.

Turn with me to Malachi again this morning.

God, through his prophets, has been calling his people back to himself because he's like that, right?

He loves us dearly.

He grieves when we wander from him.

He longs to welcome us back home to himself.

He's been doing it generation after generation through the centuries as we've seen these prophets,

Micah and Zephaniah and Haggai and Malachi, coming with these very similar messages of repentance.

And then even within each of those prophets' ministries, to the same group of people, they've said this thing over and over.

To the same people.

Repent.

A call to repentance.

To renewed relationship with God.

Because we need it.

Friends, we need it again this morning, don't we?

This is a short but powerful passage.

Much as I tried, there's no outline this morning.

We're going to read this passage, Malachi 2.17 through 3.5.

And then we're just going to walk right through it together to understand it and see what God would say to us this morning.

So I'd encourage you to keep a Bible open and follow with me through the sermon today.

That'll be your outline.

First, let's read God's holy, inerrant, infallible word that he promises will not return to him void.

That means that it will work in your heart and in mine today for his purposes.

That's good news.

Malachi 2.17

You have wearied the Lord with your words, but you say, how have we wearied him?

By saying, everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them.

Or by asking, where is the God of justice?

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.

But who can endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap.

He will sit as a refiner and 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.

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old, as in former years.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment.

I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely,

against those who oppress the hired worker and his wages, the widow and the fatherless,

against those who thrust aside the sojourner.

And do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

Let's pray together.

Father, we give you thanks for your word.

And we plead for your help.

We need renewal, revival in our hearts.

Your spirit is the one who brings that and he does it through the word.

And so, Father, do it now in us for your glory.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Perhaps some of you like me have had this experience.

You're driving along the interstate with a 70 mile per hour speed limit.

And you're cruising at 75 or 77 or 78 or whatever you've picked.

And all of a sudden, this guy comes just flying past you.

He must be going at least 90 miles an hour, probably 100.

And you think, I hope they catch that guy.

And then maybe the second or the third person that whizzes past you like that, you start to think,

I can't believe these policemen.

Where are they anyway when you need them?

You've felt that before, right?

Well, I suspect some of you have also had it happen where just a couple minutes after those reckless drivers fly past you

and there's nobody stopping them, you look in the rearview mirror and there's blue lights flashing.

And you think, yes, finally, justice.

Someone who can catch the guy going 100, justice will be served.

Except that those blue lights don't whiz past you like those other guys.

They stay right there behind you.

And eventually, you pull off to the side and you think to yourself, I wasn't the one speeding.

And he says, sir, I've got you at 82 and a 70.

And you think, me?

I thought you were going to ask me for the license plate of that other guy.

I mean, I'm the good guy here.

I'm on your team.

We're going to catch the bad guys, right?

What do you mean you got me at 82 and a 70?

You better get going.

They're getting away.

You just honestly can't believe that you're the one on the receiving end of this so-called justice.

I don't know if you've felt that before, but whether it's on the road or anywhere else, we all have this tendency to think that God's justice, his just judgment is for someone else.

Right?

There's somebody else that needs that.

We assume we're the cowboy in the white hat.

We're the good guys.

Right?

Right?

Kids, have you ever thought, I'm one of the good kids?

Have you thought that before?

I grew up thinking that, you know, I'm one of the good kids.

Other kids got in trouble at school, but I didn't.

I was especially careful to behave when I was at church.

Right?

Yeah?

You do that?

Uh-huh.

And then I played a lot of baseball.

And so my team played baseball games basically every weekend.

Except, you know, on Sundays I went to church and the rest of the guys on my team played baseball.

So I was really one of the good kids.

Right?

There were bad kids out there and I knew I wasn't perfect, but the bad kids were the other ones and I was a good one.

So if we needed to talk about sin and repentance, if somebody needed to apologize or change, it was somebody else, not me.

If God wanted to come deal with someone about their behavior or have a pastor preach sermons about repentance for weeks on end, I could give him a list of names to talk to.

Here they are, God, you should talk to them, not me.

Someone from another political party, someone clearly less spiritual than I am, someone not at church as often as I am.

God's people have started feeling that way in Malachi's day.

And Malachi wants to warn them.

Listen, it's a warning about the danger of feeling like you're the guy in the white hat.

Of feeling like you're one of the good kids.

There's a danger in that.

That we might miss God's call to our hearts.

It's actually where this passage starts.

It's a warning that God's people have started getting critical, not just of others doing those bad things, but of God himself and how he's handling it or not.

Where are those policemen when you need them anyway?

Verse 17, where is the God of justice?

Jesus.

And we're told the way that some of God's people are acting is wearying God.

That's not a good sign, is it?

When God who is eminently patient and slow to anger and long suffering is weary with your words, that's not good.

What are they saying that's causing that?

They're saying everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord.

God delights in the bad guys.

He doesn't care about us.

Where is that so-called just God anyway?

They don't see justice in the world around them.

The Persians are stronger and richer and they don't even follow Yahweh.

The Jews have worked hard for God on his temple and it's not paying off.

It's not making their city great again.

Some wealthier Jews are even taking advantage of poorer ones and they're getting away with it.

They've had enough.

God, they tell each other, is not as holy, righteous, and on top of things as he says he is.

If he is just, he's certainly not powerful enough or loving enough to show up here and fix things.

And God gets weary of this because we falsely accuse him of unfaithfulness and completely avoid or ignore our own unfaithfulness.

We accuse him of being asleep at the wheel.

We blame God and keep ourselves off the hook.

Now let me be clear on this before we read further.

The Bible is full of examples of crying out to God in the face of injustice.

Okay?

They're all over the place being passionate about it, emotionally pleading with him desperately.

And this is commended.

It's a good thing.

It's all through the Psalms lamenting,

How long, O Lord?

Deliver me.

Bring justice against my enemies.

Oh, that you would come and help me.

And God loves to hear his children cry to him and long to understand him and know him more.

He loves that.

This is not that.

Okay?

This is different.

This is an accusatory complaint.

Character assassination of God in order to relieve ourselves of guilt.

In fact, you'll notice here that the words are not spoken to God, are they?

They're actually spoken to other people.

We could say it's gossiping about God, not crying out to him.

Some among God's people have begun focusing on how God should be acting for me,

rather than how I should be acting for God,

overlooking their own sin and blaming God for what they see in the world around them.

Where is the God of justice?

And chapter 3 opens with a simple response to that question.

It's right here.

Here I am.

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.

I haven't left you.

I'm not unreliable.

I have a plan.

I love that about our God.

Even when we weary him, he doesn't give up to get away from that.

Rather, he comes near to us.

Any delay in the coming of the God of justice is for the purpose that all might repent, that more might know him.

God is not slow, but patient.

Desiring that none would perish, but that all would come to repentance, Peter says.

God's justice is sure.

He is coming.

In fact, not only is the God of justice coming to make everything right,

but someone's even coming to prepare the way for him.

So, two different people in this verse.

The messenger and then God himself.

Let me clarify those for you.

The messenger preparing the way, we learn later, is John the Baptist.

John comes, if you remember the New Testament, and he preaches a message of what?

Repentance.

Turn away from your idols and turn back to God.

Prepare your heart to receive the king.

As the herald running before the king, he's removing obstacles for God to come to his people

and fellowship with them and justice and righteousness and glory.

That's the first person who's coming.

And then the second figure is Jesus.

It's a bit confusing because he is also called messenger.

But messenger of the covenant is not the same as my messenger in this verse,

but rather it's the same as the Lord, the divine figure.

He's the one you will delight in.

He is coming, says Yahweh.

He will come suddenly to his temple, right?

To be among his people.

To dwell with them in relationship.

Which is why repentance prepares the way

so the holy God can even be able to live with them.

God doesn't give up on his people.

Rather, he draws near to them.

But when the God of justice comes,

it's no light thing for anyone.

I'm coming, says God.

But don't presume you're ready.

Especially if you're looking at everyone else's sin

and ignoring your own.

Verse 2.

But who can endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears?

You have to have clean hands and a pure heart.

For he is like a refiner's fire.

And like fuller's soap.

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.

And he will purify the sons of Levi

and refine them like gold and silver.

Hey, you with the white hat.

You who think you're the good guys.

Be careful.

He's saying.

Jesus comes to purify worshipers for Yahweh.

And it's a painful purifying.

Two images here for Jesus' work, right?

The refiner's fire and fuller's soap.

The refining fire that burns away the dross

so that the silver is clean

and the refiner can see his image

reflected back to him in it.

It burns.

And the fuller's soap.

You may not be familiar with that.

It scrubbed the dirt off of things like sheep's wool

to make it clean.

Both purify.

And both are painful.

Some of this purification process

will involve removing people

from the people of God for judgment

because they will not repent and worship Yahweh.

Some of the purification process

that Jesus brings

will be for those whose hearts are softened,

for those among God's people

who would worship Yahweh.

But they need clean hands and a pure heart

or they can't stand before him.

And so Jesus is turning their hearts back to him.

That's what Jesus comes to do, right?

That's the work of Jesus.

That's what it's about.

Not hiding your sin,

but running with it to him

so that he can cleanse you of all your sin.

That he can renew your heart

to worship Yahweh again.

Kids, let me explain it to you this way

because those are both confusing images, okay?

What God is saying here

is not that you have to be perfect,

but that you must run to Jesus with your sin

so that he can make your heart clean.

Let me ask you this.

Kids, would you ever eat spaghetti

with a white dress on?

No, no, no.

I hope you would never do such a terrible thing.

But imagine that you did.

You were so hungry

and you were in such a hurry to eat the spaghetti

that you rushed over and you tripped.

And the whole plate of spaghetti

goes all over your white dress.

Oh, no.

It's a huge mess, right?

That's what our sin is like.

Every one of us is as dirty before God

as a white dress with spaghetti all over it.

And when that happens,

you may think like some of us adults,

you know what I need to do?

I need to go hide this dress somewhere.

Mom will never know this happened, right?

Maybe she hasn't seen it yet.

But what happens if you go put that dress

in a corner somewhere?

That stain just sets in, doesn't it?

Deeper and deeper.

And you put it away.

But what happens if you actually run right away

as soon as it happens to mom?

Mom, the fire or the soap

that Malachi is talking about,

it's like goop, okay?

I mean, he didn't say it that way,

but that's what he meant.

Goop, your parents probably have something like this.

This stuff is amazing.

You know what you do with it?

You rub it on the stain, right?

And you scrub it in

and you may have to be rough with it

and it may hurt the fabric some,

but it gets the stain out.

You put it in the washing machine

and the clothes rub

and it gets rid of that terrible stain

on your white dress.

That's what Jesus does with our sin.

He wants us to run to him right away,

even though it might hurt some,

even though it might be hard

and he will cleanse us

and make us new

so that the stain is gone

and we love him even more

for how amazing he is, right?

This thing says it's the ultimate stain lifter.

That's not true.

Jesus is.

Jesus, not just your white dress.

Jesus wants to take that dark stain on your heart

and say, I can deal with that.

Bring it to me.

The big mess you've made,

I know how to take care of that.

I can clean that up for you.

So when I say repent,

it means run to Jesus with your sin,

with your mess,

because he can handle it.

That's what repent means, kids.

And Malachi is telling us this morning,

we all need Jesus' purifying work.

Your leaders are particularly highlighted

as needing Jesus' purifying work.

So we all need to be running to him,

not minimizing our sin,

thinking he needs to go fix others

out there somewhere.

I particularly want to challenge us here this morning.

Listen to this,

or you're missing Malachi's message.

If it doesn't hurt,

you're not near Jesus.

You may say you know him.

Jesus is,

he's just working in my life.

This is what Jesus would have me do.

I'm a Christian.

Of course I'm a Christian.

What else would I be?

Does it hurt?

Because if it doesn't hurt,

it's not Jesus.

It's true.

The ministry of Jesus brings joy

and freedom and cleansing

and healing.

Yes, all those things.

But he does it this way.

He is like a refining fire.

Fuller's soap.

His purifying work burns away the dross.

That's how it happens, right?

It scrubs away the dirt.

It tears away our idols

that we're clinging to.

It's a painful purifying.

Purifying.

Or else it's self-righteous,

self-deception,

believing my clothes were already white

and didn't need it.

It's one or the other.

It's painful purifying

or it's self-deception,

believing you're clean without him.

It hurts, doesn't it?

When Jesus draws you out of the comfort

you find in your financial security

and he tells you to trust him instead

of what's in your bank account.

It hurts, doesn't it?

When Jesus calls you to follow him

in a specific decision

and you have to let go of the approval

of others to do it

and that's an idol that you love

and ugh.

It hurts, doesn't it?

When Jesus shows you

you're not loving someone

but you're using them

in the relationship

to feel affirmed

and comfortable yourself.

I told you a few weeks ago

I was making a running list

in my office of idols

God is exposing in me

through this Minor Prophets series.

Those were three of them

where he's been working repentance

in my heart lately.

It's a painful process

and there are a lot of others.

But I share those with you this morning

to remind you that this repentance

that he's calling all of us to

is not merely for those

who have killed someone

or robbed a bank.

Right?

We think of repentance

sometimes that way.

Repentance is daily

moment by moment.

It's a lifestyle

that's normal

the way we relate to God

and he calls us

to that lifestyle

where our hearts grieve

broken relationship with him

where we're constantly

turning back to him

and then rejoicing

over and over again

that he restores

our relationship.

That's how we relate to him.

It's not just some big sin

you get caught in

but the daily state

of your heart

toward God.

Are you willing

to stop looking

at others' problems

and see where your heart

has strayed from God?

If you are,

Jesus delights

to meet you there

to heal and restore

that relationship

between you and your father.

and that's the hopeful part.

Right?

Jesus purifies us.

He does.

And then end of verse 3

and then after he refines them

and purifies them

they will bring offerings

and righteousness

to the Lord.

They can now

because of Jesus.

The offering of Judah

and Jerusalem

will be pleasing to the Lord

as in the days of old

and as in former years.

As we repent,

he promises to make us

into worshipers

who worship God

from the heart.

That's the hope

of the gospel

offered to us

in the context

of a passage

that primarily

is meant

to warn us

toward Jesus.

That's what will happen

when you find him

and he works on you.

And Malachi ends

this section

with these

sobering words.

Then I will draw near

to you

for judgment.

I will be a swift witness

against the sorcerers,

against the adulterers,

against those

who swear falsely,

against those

who oppress

the hired worker

and his wages,

the widow

and the fatherless,

against those

who thrust aside

the sojourner.

And do not fear me,

says the Lord of hosts.

Y'all,

this is not an exhaustive list

of all the big sins

we need to repent of,

but rather examples

of what it looks like

when people stop

fearing God.

You see that at the end,

right?

The wicked among

God's covenant people

do all these things

because they don't

fear me.

They have a worship problem

before they have

a specific sins problem

in their lives.

And the fact

that their hearts

haven't come back

to love

and trust God

looks like

these things.

Sorcery.

Using God

or other gods

to get what we want.

Manipulating God

by going to church,

looking for the good life

by just being associated

with Christianity.

Adultery.

including that in your heart

where you use

someone else you know

or you don't know

to get what you want.

Dishonesty

in order to care

for yourself.

Neglecting the least

of these

because you're not

where Jesus would be

as Thurman challenged

us last week.

Not reflecting God's heart

because your lives

and schedules

are full,

consumed with other people

just like you

without regard

for the poor

and the refugee

and the voiceless.

Ouch.

God's heart

is for faithfulness,

truth,

mercy to the least

and the left out

are ours

like that.

If you see any

of these struggles

in your heart

and life,

the call is simple,

painful,

but simple.

It's repent.

Listen,

these verses

are trying to tell us

all signs point

towards repentance.

Every verse

in this passage

is saying

repent.

repent.

The wearied response

of God

to His people

who focus on others'

sins rather than

their own,

repent.

The preparation

of John the Baptist

to get us ready

for God to come

screamed one word,

repent.

The ministry of Jesus

is one that works

to purify

those who realize

that they're speeding too,

that they have stains

on their clothes too,

that they don't reflect

God's image

or even long to sometimes.

So repent.

And in the warning

of a prophet

God sends

to speak His word

to His people,

repent.

Listen,

if God's pulling you over

this morning,

arresting your heart,

so to speak,

it's not merely

to be a killjoy

in your life.

It's not like you're

driving so fast.

That's not who He is.

He's not out

to get you like that.

Rather,

He's arresting you

to call you back

to Him,

to show you

where life really is,

to remind you

where it's found,

perhaps even

to point you

to this table

where His justice

is poured out

not on you,

but on His Son

fully.

where Jesus

underwent the ultimate

refiner's fire

so that you could

finally and forever

be purified.

Your repentance

may be painful

and may start

with tears.

It usually does.

But Yahweh

sent the messenger

of the covenant

so you would know

that you can walk

into that repentance

because it ends

not with tears

and pain

but with joy

and life.

That's what He

came to do.

It's what He said

to His disciples

even in that painful

moment for Him

on the night

He was betrayed.

Jesus took bread

and what He was

picturing was

going to hurt.

He broke it

and gave it

to His disciples

as I'm ministering

in His name

give this bread

to you

and He said

take eat

this is my body

which is broken

for you

do this

in remembrance

of me

and in the same way

after supper

He took the cup

and said

this cup

is the new covenant

in my blood

shed for many

for the forgiveness

of their sins

but His blood

was going to have

to be shed

and He said

drink of it

and do it

in remembrance

of me

for as often

as you eat

this bread

and drink this cup

you proclaim

the Lord's death

until He comes.

If that's

what you're here

to do

to proclaim

His death

if you come

as a sinner

repenting

of that sin

and saying

I need to run

back to Jesus

who took

the justice

that I deserve

then come

joyfully

weeping

and rejoicing

to this table

if you don't

know Him

if you haven't

thrown yourself

on Jesus

as your only hope

then the call

of God's word

to you this morning

would be not to come

to a table

like this

that pictures

something

that for you

is not a reality

in your heart

but rather

He's saying

to you this morning

come to Jesus

there's no other way

to find yourself

safe

from the justice

of God

and to know

your heavenly Father

we'd love for you

to come

and talk with us

we'd love to pray

with you

we'd love to tell you

more about Jesus

let me pray

and we'll celebrate

together

Jesus for your

sacrifice

for sinners

like us

we are so grateful

Holy Spirit

make us

repentant

sinners

who would come

running

not

with anything

in our hands

to offer

to our Father

but clinging

desperately

to Jesus

remind us

of that

remind us

that because of Him

you welcome us

to this table

that's amazing

grace

give us

delight in that

as we celebrate

in Jesus name

Amen

our host team members

will usher you

to tables

forward and back

we will celebrate

God's love

for us together

for more information

visit us online

at southwood.org