It May Not Be the Answer You Want: 2015 Malachi #5. This is an exposition of Malachi 2:17-3:6. This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, September 13, 2015.
Intro:
Has God ever failed to meet your expectations? Have there been those times when you were just crushed because it just didn’t work out like you thought it should? Every child of Adam has had to deal with unmet expectations. We have certain ideas of what it means to be God and how God should operate. When things do not add up – we get frustrated. It is easy for us to stand this side of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and say, “How could the Jews miss it? It is so clear.” The problem was they had built up certain expectations of what “ought” to happen and what Messiah “ought” to be like – they missed him when he came! Today many believe God is obligated to dispense the blessings of health, wealth and other tokens of divine favor. When this doesn’t happen they create a god that will explain why it didn’t happen. It seems the thought never occurs, “Maybe I was wrong in what I expected. Maybe my expectations were of my own making rather than the revealed will of God.” It seems to me, the entitlement mentality has found a home within the church.
Little is required of me – much is expected of God.
Now we might dress it up a bit. Most of us would never be foolish enough to state matters so bluntly but it seems an accurate assessment of where we are. Very little is said of a striving for godliness but an awful lot is said about blessing, provision and happiness. Even in evangelism, rather than declaring there is hope for hell-bound sinners, fully deserving of the wrath of God – we tout a savior who is good for what ails you! He’ll be your best friend; he’ll give you self esteem; he’ll make life worth living – so why don’t you “try Jesus?” “Try Jesus?” We speak of the 2nd person of the Godhead as if he were the latest version of our favorite toothpaste!
Our self-obsessed, self-absorbed thinking has resulted in a warped perspective of life and a distorted understanding of reality. The same was true in the 5th century B.C. when the prophet Malachi came with his “burden” from the Lord. It was a time of political, moral and spiritual corruption. The people of God had returned home following the Babylonian Exile. Jerusalem had been rebuilt; the temple was restored; life had pretty well settled into routine. They had become careless in their worship; indifferent towards the truth; disobedient to the covenant; faithless in their marriages and stingy with their offerings. Other than that things were fine! Of course if you had asked the people, they thought everything was good. They saw no cause for alarm.
God’s prophet came declaring God’s message – “I love you!” To which the people responded – “So you say.” “How have you loved us?” Even a casual reading of the first 2 chapters reveal the people of God were skeptical of God’s love and believed they had done nothing wrong. “How have we despised you?” “How have we polluted you?”
I’m convinced there are a great number of similarities between ancient Israel and modern day America. The sense of entitlement and the “poor me, I’m a victim” mentality to name just two. Our text this morning begins in the 2 and extends into the 3.
Text: Malachi 2:17-3:6
I’m so grateful for the grace of God. God’s grace found me dead in sin and mercifully granted me life. My sin problem was eliminated by His grace and I will be eternally grateful for that. But there is more to His grace. His grace is extended to cover my arrogance and my foolish reasoning. It is a humbling experience for a pastor to go into his files and pull out old sermons and read through them. Occasionally there are some good things but there are times when I blush because of what I find. At times I think, “You are such an idiot and God is so gracious.”
There are strong words in our text regarding God’s coming in judgment of His people and yet there is also a reminder of His grace. As I look at this text I’m reminded that:
Thesis: God graciously responds to our arrogant and foolish reasoning.
There are three things I want us to note as we walk through this passage.
- An impertinent charge. (2:17)
- A sobering response. (3:1-4)
- An unsettling yet comforting truth. (3:5-6)