SERMON: Malachi (The Greatness of God’s Love)
TEXT: Malachi 1:1-5 (ESV)
SPEAKER: Josh Hanson
DATE: 7-25-21
You can watch the sermon here.
You can find the sermon notes here.
As always it’s a joy to be with all of you this weekend at Gateway Church. And the one thing I want you to know — and this is true if you’re worshipping with us in person at our North Main campus or are joining us online — the one thing I want you to know is that God loves you and that I love you too.
This is the final week of this year’s edition of our Finding Jesus series. This is a series where we look at different books in the Old Testament and see how the whole Bible is ultimately telling one story — the story of Jesus. In previous years we’ve looked at the books of Moses — the first five books of the Old Testament. We’ve looked at the Major Prophets — the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And last year we looked at the first half of a group of books known as the Minor Prophets.
In these sermons I introduce you to a book of the Bible that you may or may not be familiar with. Then we do an overview of the book before focusing in on one section of it. And finally we discover a way to find Jesus in our book. Because — that’s our goal — to find Jesus — because the whole Bible is pointing us to him.
And in this year’s edition of Finding Jesus — we’re looking at the final six books that are part of a group known as the Minor Prophets. And — today — we’ll be looking at the book of Malachi. So if you have your Bible, please turn with me to Malachi chapter 1.
We’ve already looked at the books of Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah. And — this week — we’re finishing up the Minor Prophets with Malachi. And I hope that you’ll grow to know and love these books of the Bible and spend time in them — finding Jesus — and the joy that’s found only in him.
So let’s take some time to get our bearings in the book of Malachi — and I hope you’ll see that Malachi is a book you’ll want to go read for yourself.
First, what do we know about Malachi? And one thing we know is that Malachi was a prophet — which means he spoke on behalf of God. His name means “my messenger” but — and how about this tidbit of Bible trivia — we’re not even sure if Malachi’s the prophet’s name — because — “my messenger” — or Malachi — can be a general title given to any prophet. (Thomas McComisky, The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary (Grand Rapids Baker, 2009), 1245.) But — in order to keep things simple — we’re going to consider Malachi to be the prophet’s name. And — other than him being the last prophet — before John the Baptist comes on the scene 450 years later — we don’t know much about him.
But to give you an idea of what’s going on in history — at this time — the Jewish people are divided into two nations. Originally there were the twelve tribes of Israel — each tribe descending from a son of Jacob — who was also named Israel. And these tribes eventually ask for a king. The first king was Saul. Next came David. Then David’s son — Solomon — became king.
After Solomon, there’s conflict over who should be king and the nation ends up dividing. Ten tribes join together and keep the name Israel — they’re in the north — and two tribes join together and are named Judah — they’re in the south.
And — for a while — neither Israel nor Judah experience external conflict — meaning war with other nations — but they have significant internal problems. Evil kings. Moral corruption. The people abandon God. Things are a big mess — which you can read about in the books 1st and 2nd Kings.
But here’s what’s crazy. The people of both Israel and Judah assume that the lack of external conflict — the fact they’re not at war with other nations — is because God approves of the way they’re living — they think peaceful times means God’s blessing. But — remember — they’ve abandoned God — and yet think that God approves of their behavior. So God sends in the Assyrians.
The Assyrians come from the north and invade and conquer Israel. Down in Judah — things are better than things in Israel — but not much. They’re not conquered by the Assyrians — they’re just oppressed by them until the capital of Assyria — Nineveh — falls in 612 BC. Egypt comes in and overpowers Judah until the Babylonians defeat Egypt and conquer Judah in 587 BC.
Nebuchadnezzar is king of Babylon at the time — this is the same Nebuchadnezzar you may know from the book of Daniel. And — after conquering Judah — the Babylonians disperse many of the Jews — beginning the 70 years of living in exile that God had warned his people about — this is a consequence because of their sin and rebellion against him. Then around 520 BC — Babylon falls to King Cyrus who’s the leader of the Persian Empire. And — it’s during Cyrus’ reign — that groups of Jewish people begin returning to their homeland.
Now — Malachi is alive around 100 years after the Jewish people begin returning home. The Temple’s been rebuilt under the leadership of Nehemiah and the great hope — of a New Jerusalem — a city that’s the center of the Kingdom of God — a place where evil and corruption has been eradicated — well — none of it’s coming true. Instead — corruption, rebellion, and evil are still in full force.
And — add to all of this — the people are doubting God’s love for them. One scholar writes, “The people were discouraged by [the] hard economic realities [of] Persian dominance. Some of the people felt that the Lord did not really love them because of these factors. Many Israelites were showing their dissatisfaction with the Lord by bringing defective animals for sacrifices. Some even went so far as to assert that worshipping the Lord was drudgery and serving God was a waste of time.” (Stephen R. Miller, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2004), 311.)
So — their thinking is similar to ours. Times of peace means that God loves us and is pleased with us. And — times of hardship — well obviously — hardship means that God doesn’t love us anymore so why even bother trying to please him, right?
And what’s the result of them questioning God’s love? Well...God sends Malachi with a message for the people.
So that’s the background of what’s going on. Now, let’s turn to the book itself. What’s the layout of the book? The book contains four chapters consisting of 55 verses. Yet — though short in length — it’s quoted quite frequently in the New Testament. (See Matthew 11:10; 17:12; Mark 1:2; 9:11-12; Luke 1:17; 7:27; Romans 9:13)
Now what makes Malachi unique — is that it consists of several disputations — or debates — between God and the people. God will make a claim. The people will disagree with him. Then God will respond to their disagreement. And we find several of these debates in our book. (Miller, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, 310.)
Now most of these debates come by way of questions and answers. In fact, the book has 27 questions that the prophet asks. And he asks the questions — in a way — so the people can conclude — for themselves — what the correct answer is to his questions.
In chapter 1 — which is where our passage is found — God declares his love for his people — which they question. We’ll look at these verses in a moment. Additionally — in chapter 1 — Malachi blasts the priests for allowing sacrifices to be presented to God that didn’t meet the requirements established in the Law. Basically, the people were apathetic in their worship of God — so they bring him less than stellar sacrifices — for which the prophet rebukes the people.
In chapter 2, Malachi rebukes the priests for their teaching. And he warns the priests that God’s going to curse them because their teaching is causing the people to stumble. Additionally, the prophet points out the marriage problems going on among the people — as many of the men are divorcing their wives and marrying non-Jewish women. And their new wives are leading the men to worship false gods. So there’s a marriage crisis among the people of God that’s also a spiritual crisis.
In chapter 3, we see how far the people have gone in dishonoring God. They accuse God of not being just — yet they’re robbing God with their finances. They also decide that — the sacrifice that worshipping God requires — just isn’t worth it. They’re not even trying when it comes to worshipping God. They’ve just given up. Yet — chapter 3 offers a glimmer of hope. Some of the people — not all, but a few — respond to the prophet’s message and repent of their ways.
Finally — in chapter 4 — Malachi mentions the coming Day of the Lord. The day when God will destroy all who oppose him and establish his Kingdom on earth. But — before this day — he will send one more prophet who will preach a message of repentance.
Which leads us to the section of the book we’re going to focus on today. So let’s turn to our passage. Hopefully you’ve had time to find Malachi chapter 1. We’ll begin in verse 1.
“The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. 2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 4 If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’” 5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!” (Malachi 1:1-5 ESV)
How do you define greatness? Whatever your definition — have you noticed how we — as a society — admire greatness in others? We look up to others who are above average — maybe it’s their character, or their strength, or their abilities, or their accomplishments. And — though we can turn these people into idols — often — what we really admire is their greatness — we’re just in awe of it.
Now — part of the reason we have an awe of greatness — is because — culturally — we have an underlying frustration with mediocrity. Thus, it’s been said, “When someone accomplishes something extraordinary, it catches [our] attention.”Paul Franco, “Tocqueville and Nietzsche on the Problem of Human Greatness in Democracy,” Review of Politics 76 (2014): 439.)
For example — in sports — did you know that “GOAT” has been used to refer to players since the early 1900s? But “GOAT” started off meaning someone who lost the game for the team. But — now — what does “GOAT” mean? It means the greatest of all time.
So if I ask, “Who’s the greatest basketball player of all time — who’s the GOAT?” You’d answer, _____. Or who’s the greatest female gymnast? Who’s the GOAT of NFL quarterbacks? Or who’s the greatest preacher?
Now — the reason why you all gave different answers — except — your obvious unity about who’s the greatest preacher — the reason for so many different answers is because we’ve watered down our definition of greatness. Just google the phrase “greatest of all time” and you’ll find that a lot of people are claiming the title of “greatest of all time” for all sorts of things. Leading one author to write, “We’ve all been overrun by a herd of goats. [And] we need to kill off some of these GOATS trampling through the internet. Not because of a surplus of actual greatness...but [because] the title ‘Greatest of All Time’ is being abused.” (Jesse Washington, “We’re Being Overrun by a Herd of Goats,” October 4, 2018. https://theundefeated.com/features/goat-no-longer-means-greatest-of-all-time-muhammad-ali/.)
Now — I want to be clear — there’s nothing wrong with greatness. In the Bible we find people who accomplish great things. But — where we can go wrong — is the slight shift from admiring the greatness — we see in others — to worshipping it or being envious of it. And society does this — it admires greatness of others — all while ignoring the greatness of God.
In fact, Paul highlights this idea in his opening words in Romans — a book we’ve been looking at for a few years now. Paul writes, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. 21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.” (Romans 1:20-25 NLT)
What Paul’s saying is that — though God is the Creator of everyone and everything — which is the epitome of greatness — humanity defines greatness by things God has created instead of defining greatness by the One who’s the Creator of all things. And — we Christians — can do this just as easily as anyone else. We have our own Christian celebrities. And it seems like many of these folks are being crushed under the weight of living up to our awe of their greatness — too many headlines keep making the rounds of folks stepping out of ministry — even away from the faith altogether — even though we were in awe of them.
Yet — the gospel reminds us that — though we humans are the pinnacle of God’s creation — though we cando some amazingly great things — there’s only One who is the definition of greatness — God himself.
Now — my hope is that all of us will see the relevancy of God’s greatness in our lives. For God’s greatness directly affects all of us. For some of us — my hope is that we’ll stop fearing God’s greatness — fearing that he’s out to get you or control you — or out to make you miserable — maybe your fear is that God will use his greatness to do these kinds of things to you. I hope that you’ll see that God is using his greatness for your good. For others of us — I hope that — today — we’ll allow our definition of greatness to not be defined by what we do, but by the One who loves us.
And — in Malachi — we’re going to see a glimpse of what God’s greatness is like. And that his greatness is defined by something that most of us will be agreeable with — his love.
Let’s begin back in verse 1.
“The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. 2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” ” (Malachi 1:1-2a ESV)
Right away we’re told that this is an oracle from the Lord. So — what’s an oracle? An oracle is a threatening message of judgment from God through a prophet. So an oracle isn’t news you want to hear. But — notice — how this oracle of judgment begins with words about God’s love. For God tells the people — through Malachi — “I have loved you.” God — in these words — isn’t mentioning a present love that he has for them — nor a future love — he’s bringing to the people’s attention his past love for them. God’s wanting to bring to their mind all of the ways — throughout history — that he’s demonstrated his love for his people.
So let’s do that right now.
We’re gonna see if we can make this work. If you’re at our North Main campus — or here at our County Road 9 campus — right now — I want you to speak up — if you’re joining us from home — maybe you’re watching this with your family or roommates — type in the chat — and give some examples of ways that God has shown his love to his people up to this point in history — up to this moment in Malachi’s day. Online — type in the chat — here or at NM — give some examples of ways that God has demonstrated his love to his people.
PAUSE
Here at County Road 9 I heard… if you’re at home or at North Main — I'm sure you had some other examples.
But now let’s make this personal — but I still want you to give me examples — at home, North Main, here at County Road 9 — what are ways in which God has demonstrated his love to you in the past?
PAUSE
Here at County Road 9 I heard… and — again — if you’re at home or at North Main I’m sure you had some other examples.
Here’s the point. Through Malachi — God tells the people that he’s demonstrated his love for them in the past. And how do they respond — what do the people do when God tells them that he’s loved them? They question his love, don’t they? In spite of God having demonstrated over and over and over again — his love for them — the people question his love.
Which makes me wonder how we’re responding to God’s love toward us. You just gave me all kinds of examples of how God has demonstrated his love for you.
Now — in response to the people doubting his love for them — God brings up his relationship with Jacob and Esau. Back to verse 2.
““I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. ” (Malachi 1:2-3a ESV)
Here we find that — part of what it means that God’s love is great — is that his love for his people is an electing love.
When the people question God’s love — “how have you loved us” — God replies with, “Jacob I loved. Esau I hated.” Now this is language that’s — understandably so — disturbing to our ears — “Jacob I loved. Esau I hated.” In fact, some biblical scholars have suggested that God didn’t really hate Esau — he just had a “lesser love” for him. (Theodore Laetsch, The Minor Prophets (St. Louis: Concordia, 1956), 512.)
Now — even if that’s a better interpretation of what God’s saying — which I’m not sure that it is — at the very least — we see God loving Jacob in a way that’s different than with Esau. And what’s God’s reason for loving Jacob — in this way — and not Esau? It’s not what the men had done or would do — this is all spoken about Jacob and Esau before they were born — so this love isn’t something the two men have earned or unearned.
So what’s the reason for God loving Jacob and not Esau? And — again — the reason can be quite disturbing to our ears — because the reason is that it was simply God’s choice to love Jacob and hate Esau. This is — what’s been called — God’s electing love. God’s choice in who receives his love and who doesn’t. And this is part of what it means to say that God’s love is great.
In Ephesians, Paul writes, “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” (Ephesians 1:3-5 NLT)
God loved his people and chose his people and decided in advance to adopt his people into his family — when? Before he spoke creation into existence. This is his great electing love.
In Romans — in some verses we looked at earlier this year — we read, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. 31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” (Romans 8:28-31 NLT).
Does your definition — of the greatness of God’s love — include his electing — his choosing to love — his people? Is your understanding of the love of God this big — this great? As I said to a group of pastors and church leaders last month — “Yes — there are things about salvation that we do understand. But there’s much that’s a beautiful mystery.” And part of the beautiful mystery of salvation is God’s electing love for his people.
But — please know that this isn’t a threat — God choosing to love us shouldn’t be seen as a threat. In fact — it should be exhilarating to the people of God. Because the salvation Christ accomplished on behalf of his people isn’t something any of us would desire without God first giving us the desire — that’s the greatness of God’s love for his people. He knows we wouldn’t desire his love. He knows we would reject the salvation Jesus offers to us without his divine help. And — in his great love — he helps his people — he guides his people — he leads us so we joyfully respond to his love.
And this leads us to another aspect of God’s great love. Let’s go back to verse 2.
““I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 4 If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’” 5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!” (Malachi 1:2-5 ESV)
The aspect of God’s love — that we’ve come to now — something else that makes God’s love a great love — is the sovereignty of his love. In response to the people doubting his love, God asks them to consider what their lives would’ve been like if God wouldn't have chosen them over Esau and his ancestors from Edom. As someone has said, “Israel needed to consider what her lot would have been if she, like Edom, had not been elected to a covenant relationship with [God]. Both Israel and Edom received judgment from God at the hands of the Babylonians...Yet God repeatedly promised to restore Israel (because of his covenant promises), but he condemned Edom to complete destruction, never to be restored.” (Craig Blaising, “Malachi,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament (Wheaton: Victor, 1985), 1576.)
God wants the people to consider how hopeless they would be without his great love for them. They need his love. They’re hope is in the fact that God loves them and has promised to never stop loving them. The only chance they’ve got is — not in their awesome love for God — for they’re a people who’ve loved many false gods — the only chance they’ve got is in God’s “never-ending, I won’t give up and will forever be faithful” love towards them.
And — we see in Malachi’s words that one day — in response to God’s love for them — and in response to his judgement against their enemies — the people will say, “Great is the Lord!” One day — the people will recognize the greatness of God and his love for them — his sovereign and “am working out everything for your good” love for them. For God is sovereign over all of creation — and he loves his people with his great sovereign love.
But to not recognize the sovereignty of God’s love — and how this defines the greatness of his love — not recognizing the sovereignty of God’s love leads us to having an attitude of complacency and self-centeredness. It leads us — like the people in Malach’s day — to question God, “You say you love me, but — tell me again — exactly how have you loved me?”
Yet — the people of God then — and the people of God today — have an opportunity to — instead of questioning his love — we have the opportunity to respond to God’s great sovereign and electing love. For God’s great love should…
Take an honest assessment of your life. This past week, how have you responded to the great love that God has for you?
The pastor — who I just quoted — has illustrated how the greatness of God’s love should impact the nitty gritty of everyday life. He said...
God’s love — as seen in his electing of his people and in his sovereignty over all things — God’s love — is a great love. And God’s great love is most clearly seen in his Son, Jesus Christ. As Alistair Begg has said, “The greatness of God is not revealed in his isolation from us, but is revealed in his intimacy with us.”
And Jesus is God with us. God didn’t remain distant — when we sinned and rebelled against him — but — in his great love — he came to earth to be one of us — to be with us — to love us. As John tells us, “So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.” (John 1:14 NLT)
Jesus is the full display of God’s great love for us. And — by turning to him — and receiving the work of love that he accomplished on the cross — him dying for the sins of all who turn to him in faith — by turning to Christ — you find yourself embraced by the love of your great God. And his great love for you guarantees that you are now — and will forever be — one of his elect children — for he has chosen to love you. Loving you is his choice — loving you gives him great pleasure. And his love — being a sovereign love — means that — because he loves you — God is working out all things for your good. In love, he is orchestrating all things to bring you to your eternal home — his forever home — where you will experience intimacy with your great God who loves you.
What wonderful — hope-giving — news for the people of God. God loves you and his love for you is great. This news can be yours — today — if you turn to Christ — who gave his life — in love — for you. As we pray — I’m going to specifically pray that you will follow the Spirit’s leading and respond to God’s love for you. Let’s pray together.
Heavenly Father, you are great. There’s none greater. Forgive us for being in awe of the greatness of your creation while ignoring the greatness of you who has created all things. Your power is great. Your beauty is great. Your justice is great. Your holiness is great. Your love is great. Help us to remember that greatness is defined by you.
Jesus, without your great act of love for us — your life, death, and resurrection — we would be people who only know the great judgement of God. But — in love — in your great love for us — you experienced God’s judgement in our place. Paid for our sins. And have blessed us with the rewards of the perfect life that you lived. What hope we have because of your great love for us.
Spirit of God, Many are in need of hope. Many are in need of joy. Many are in need of peace. Many are in need of healing. But — most importantly — all of us need to know and experience and respond to God’s great love for us. For those of us who have responded — increase our awareness of God’s love for us so we live with confidence — knowing that God loves us. And — for those who have not responded to God’s love — I ask that you would lead them. Guide them. Direct them. Open their eyes so they see the greatness of God’s love for them. And may they be in awe of him and humble themselves before him. Knowing that they don’t deserve his love — yet may they joyfully receive it. And be forever changed by it. And we pray all of these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
May you go knowing that God loves you. And his love for you is great. Amen.
God loves you. I love you. You are sent.
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