Pastors’ Blog

Malachi 3:16-18

(1 Peter 2:11-12; Matthew 7:24-27)

“You Will See the Distinction”

Introduction

Malachi speaks to a people who are disappointed with God. They think that they have done what the Lord requires: they have rebuilt the temple, brought their offerings, sung their songs, prayed their prayers, and studied their Scriptures. But God has not opened the windows of heaven and poured out his blessings on them the way that they expected him to do, and they have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t pay to serve the Lord. Why, they ask, do people who do not serve the Lord seem to prosper, while God’s people seem to struggle? If that is the case, why bother to serve the Lord at all?

Through his messenger, the Lord responds to their complaints. He assures them of his love for them, opening the prophecy with the heart-cry, “I have loved you!” He shows them that they have not experienced the blessings of being his people simply because they have not cherished the privilege of being his people. They have responded to his love with a religious formalism that tries to mask the disobedience of their hearts. It is, in fact, only because of God’s unchanging faithfulness that they have not yet been destroyed (3:6).

And then, in the verses we have read, the prophet describes what happens when God’s people begin to return to him with all their hearts: as promised, he returns to them, and those who are watching, wondering if God is real, begin “to see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not” (3:18).

There is a primary sense to these words that clearly refers to the end of history, to the final judgment, which is promised throughout Scripture, and is a cause for fear and anxiety to those of us who understand something of the awesome holiness of God and the awful sinfulness and rebellion of our own hearts. Here God promises that the day is coming when he will destroy the wicked (4:1), but that for those who are his, it shall be a day of salvation, when “the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. (4:1f).

However, there are also seasons throughout the history of humanity when God acts with such clarity and power that the distinction between God’s people and the world around them is clear to all. We call such seasons times of revival or awakening or reformation and treat them as extraordinary, but they are what God always desires for his people. It is only in such seasons that we realize what we are meant to be. In our text, we see what happens when God’s people, rather than complaining begin to listen and respond to God’s call, “Return to me and I will return to you” (3:7).

Body

1. What does it look like when we return to the Lord?
   

   We fear the Lord (3:16).
   

   We esteem (lit. meditate on) his name (3:16).
   

   We serve him (3:17&18).
   

2. What does it look like when the Lord returns to us?
   

   He treasures us and treats us as his own children (3:17).
   

   He makes clear those who are his and those who are not (3:18).
   

   He rescues us from the judgment we deserve (4:2).
   

1. How do we stand fast in this relationship of intimacy and trust?
   

   We look to his law (4:4).
   

   We look to his Redeemer (4:5).
   

   We look to our families (4:6).
   

Conclusion

What will we do with this prophetic word? Will we relegate it to the distant past, to Israel’s history, to ancient literature, to a primitive people’s view of God? We do that to our eternal peril. This word is as much for us as for Israel, as much for the people of Knoxville as for the people of Jerusalem. Remember God’s cry in the middle of the prophecy: “I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (3:6). We children of Knoxville are not consumed because of the Lord’s unchanging faithfulness and steadfast mercy.

At the end of the day, God gives us what we want: to those who want him, who long for his loving-kindness and esteem him above all others and all else, he gives himself in everlasting love and life. But to those who want him to leave them alone, to let them pursue their own desires without his influence or interruption, he also gives what they want: an eternity without him, the awful anarchy of humans no longer living under the restraint of his common grace: a city with no love, no beauty, no justice, no truth, all gentleness and mercy gone, for its source is gone. The distinction finally and eternally clear between those who have feared him, who esteemed his name and served him, and those who have not.

What of you? You are living toward one end or the other? Which will it be for you? “Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them” (3:16).

Malachi 2:17-3:12

(Luke 6:37-38; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15)

“Return to Me and I Will Return to You”

We all do it: it may be a family crisis or a crucial project at work or an important exam or a big game. We determine to live the week in advance in a way that will please the Lord. We make sure to show up for worship and to put in an offering. We pray with particular zeal. In other words, we want the Lord to take notice of us, to be pleased with us, to reward us for our obedience. We revert to the ways and means of childhood when we wanted something from our parents.

This is what the people of Malachi’s day were doing. When times were hard, they said, Okay, let’s try doing what the Lord requires, and see if he’ll bless us. So, they went through the motions of obedience, pretending devotion to the Lord, when they were anything but devoted to him. And then, when God did not immediately respond by answering their every request, satisfying their every desire, they thought, Why bother? What is to be gained from obeying the Lord? They actually brought charges against God, and in our text, the prophet speaks up for God and answers their charges.

I wonder if some of us here this morning believe that God has been unjust toward us, that he cannot be trusted to keep the promises that we find in the Scriptures. I suspect that there are more than a few of us who have harbored resentment toward the Lord, and who need to hear Malachi’s words as the Lord calling us to return to him, not in a sort of two-minute drill because we are facing some crisis, but to return to him for good, as a whole new way of living.

Body

• The accusation: There is no reason to believe in God’s justice or faithfulness.
  

Why do the wicked seem to be favored by God? (2:17b). What is the substance of that charge? Well, aren’t there times when the wicked seem to prosper and go unpunished (3:15)? What do we gain by obeying God’s commands and serving him (3:14)?

• The defense: The problem is not with the Lord, but with his people.
  

The Lord is going to come and deal with injustice and wickedness (3:1). But, before you start celebrating, consider this: Who can endure the day of his coming? For judgment will begin with God’s own household (3:2-5). Only because of God’s unchanging faithfulness have his people survived to this day. His people have a continuing history of unfaithfulness, and if our salvation rested on our faithfulness, we would have no hope (3:6,7a). Nevertheless, while he does not change in his character or purposes, God does grow weary of the disobedience and constant complaining of his people (2:17).

• The invitation: God in his mercy says, “Return to me and I will return to you.”
  

But how are we to return to the Lord (3:7)? God’s answer: Give me your treasure (3:8). E.g., Jesus and the “Rich Young Ruler.” Tithe means one tenth of everything we earn and have. There were, in addition, all sorts of offerings that the people of Israel brought that pictured aspects of their relationship with the Lord. And they were to be faithful in giving alms to the poor whenever they encountered people begging. As Malachi has already reminded the people, they not only have failed to tithe faithfully. When they have given, it has not been their first and best, but their last and least. The whole tithe emphasizes all that the Lord desires of us as sign that we are his (3:10).

• The promise: God says to those who return to him, “I will bless you, and through you the nations will be blessed.”
  

Test me, says the Lord, and see how I will bless you (3:10). The testimony of God’s people down through the ages who have given generously to his work is of a joy and spiritual prosperity that could not be experienced through any other strategy of investment. You will not necessarily, in spite of what some prosperity gospel preachers teach, become wealthy with the things of this world. But you will have all you need, and will enjoy it beyond the enjoyment of those who live for the things of this life, and so can never get enough.

And I will also bless the nations through you (3:12).
When God blesses his people, and his people realize that they are blessed in order to be a blessing to the nations, then the nations rejoice, and have reason to believe the good news of God’s grace.

Conclusion

God invites us to put him to the test (3:10). But the invitation is only to those who return to him with all their heart. Are you willing to trust the Lord with the very things – your wealth, your talents, your time, your affection – upon which this world rests its hope and confidence? You’ve tried it the world’s way and it’s let you down every time. Half-hearted faith is an oxymoron. Give him your heart today. Don’t wait until it’s too late. “Return to me,” says our great God and King, “and I will return to you.”

Malachi 2:1-16
(Matthew 5:27-32; Galatians 5:16-26)
“So Guard Yourselves in Your Spirit and Do Not Be Faithless”

Introduction

This past week, you may have heard of the writer Anne Rice’s renunciation of her recent return to the church of her youth. She is renouncing the church and her Christian identity in order, she says, to follow Jesus. Christians she sees as contentious, disputatious, and unloving, nothing like the One whom we call Lord. “I’m leaving the church, not Christ,” she says. And her very public example is being followed by legions of Americans. The fastest growing religious group in America is the spiritually unaffiliated. Why? Where is the spiritual power and glory promised by Christ to his people?

Malachi addressed his warnings to people much like you and me. They believed that they had done what God required, and wondered why they had not experienced to a greater measure the reality of God’s promises. Where was his glory? The visible glory of God had been seen filling the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple of Solomon. His glory had departed during the exile of his people. But he had promised that when his people returned from exile and rebuilt the temple, his glory would again fill it. That visible glory was the sign both to Israel and her enemies that the living God dwelt in the midst of his people, that he would prosper and protect them. It was the visible sign of his love for them. The people of Malachi’s day had returned under Nehemiah and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Under Ezra, they had rebuilt the temple. But this time, the glory of God had not returned and filled the temple. Those who were old enough to remember Solomon’s temple wept, realizing that the days of greatness were past, and the day of small things had come.

How many of us feel that way! We have read of the great things God has done in the past. Some of us are old enough to remember days of the presence of God so powerful that rooms where we worshiped were shaken. We have seen such things today in other countries and cultures where the Spirit of God is powerfully at work. We don’t know whether to laugh or weep at what today is called revival in our land. Here we are: we have built the sanctuary, sung the hymns, given our offerings. Where is the Lord? Why doesn’t he answer our cries? Why doesn’t he again enter his sanctuary in power and glory? When we call on him, why doesn’t he answer and show us great and mighty things?

Malachi’s answer to Israel, and the Spirit’s answer to us, is this: “I have loved you!” (1:2). The question is not whether God loves us, but whether we love him. If the message of Malachi is that God loves us, his warning is that we cannot experience the reality of God’s presence unless we cherish the reality of his presence.

In this second chapter before us this morning, Malachi continues to force us to look at ourselves, to realize that we are shaped by what we love most, and to come to grips with the fact that we have not loved the Lord above all other loves. He summarizes this by telling the priests that they have despised God’s covenant with them. If this is for Israel’s priests, why should we think it applies to us? Because under the New Covenant we are all called priests of God. Peter refers to Christians as “a chosen people, a royal priest hood” (1 Peter 2:9); and John refers to us as “a kingdom of priests unto our God” (Revelation 5:10). This is for each of us, and I believe that the Spirit of God wants to show us today that we are like the priests of Malachi’s day in despising God’s covenant with us, in our case the New Covenant that God sealed with the blood of his own Son. Three illustrations are given in our text of the ways that we have despised God’s covenant of grace.

Body

• We have not cherished God’s honor.
  

In order to understand how we have failed to cherish God’s honor, we need to understand exactly what it is that Malachi is referring to when he speaks of this “covenant of life and peace” (2:5). He is referring back to a period in the wilderness recorded in the book of Numbers, chapter 25, when the men of Israel began to “indulge in immorality with the Moabite women,” and ended up by worshipping their gods. Moses was distressed, and called the people to repent. As the Spirit of God began to move in revival, the people began to break down and weep over their sin. In the midst of this scene of repentance and worship, a man named Zimri walked through the middle of the camp with a Midianite woman named Cozbi, and went into his tent to sleep with her. One of Aaron’s grandsons, a priest named Phinehas, was so outraged for the sake of God’s honor, that he took his spear, went into the tent, and thrust the spear through them both as they lay there. God said to Moses, “because [Phinehas] was as zealous for my honor as I am … I am making my covenant of peace with him” (Numbers 25:10-12).

How does that story strike you? As horrible? As bloodthirsty? Our response is perhaps an alarming measure of our concern for the honor and glory of God. Moses himself – in that moment on the mountain of God, when God threatened to destroy the Israelites and give Moses a different, more obedient people to lead – pled with God to spare the people, not for their sake, but for the sake of God’s honor. Moses said, “If you destroy them, the nations will mock you as being unable to finish what you have started. If that’s going to happen,” said Moses, “then destroy me with them, because I cannot bear to live in a world where your name is held in such contempt.”

There it is! That’s what Malachi is getting at. Where is our passion for the glory of God? He tells us that, to avoid our own destruction, we must set our hearts to honor him. We live in a culture that mocks God, his people and his truth, and instead of recoiling in horror, too often we laugh along, follow along, and link arms with those who despise the living God.

• We have not cherished God’s Word.
  

We have been entrusted with God’s truth in the midst of a culture that thinks that there is no such thing as universal truth. There is what you believe and what I believe, but there is no need to hold to the same view of truth. Over against all of that stands the Word of the living God, who says, “This is the way, walk in it.” But Malachi points out that God’s people have neither taught the truth nor walked in the truth. As a result, we have “caused many to stumble” (2:8). How have we done that?

• We have not cherished God’s community.
  

God dwells in the midst of his people, and in his people. This means that whatever we do involves both God himself and involves other believers whom we are linked together with in the Body of Christ. We can never act alone without affecting the entire community of God’s people. In two ways, we continue to repeat the sins of Israel:

• By not being careful to marry only those who cherish God’s covenant of grace (2:11b).
• By breaking faith with the wife or husband of our youth (2:14). This may either be through adultery or divorce.

Why is this matter of marriage so important? It is important because it is the ultimate metaphor of God’s covenant with his people.

Conclusion

Why are people, especially young adults, fleeing the American church? Why do many leave (as did Anne Rice) in the belief that they can follow Jesus better outside than inside the church? Because, like Israel of old, the church has become just like the world around us, rather than living counter-culturally and offering the world a reason to believe the gospel of grace.

The power of God for the mission of God will again begin to flow through us when we turn from our cultural captivity to cherish God’s honor, to cherish God’s Word, and to cherish God’s people, beginning with our own families, our husbands and wives, in whom the living Christ dwells by his Spirit.

Malachi 1:1-14
(John 13:34-35; Ephesians 3:14-21)
“I Have Loved You”

Introduction

Why would we want, in the midst of a long, hot summer, to listen to a brief little prophecy found at the very end of the Old Testament? What could it possibly have to say to us? What has drawn me over the past week or two to this particular book is that its message is so very contemporary. A number of you have commented on how wonderfully contemporary is the message of Habakkuk, the so-called minor prophet whom we studied over the past four Sundays. So I thought that perhaps looking at another of the minor prophets might reinforce the recognition that these too-often neglected final twelve books of the Old Testament bring us a strong word from the Lord, words of challenge, warning and comfort, in the times and places of our lives where we are tempted to doubt God’s presence and care for us.

The name, Malachi, means “messenger,” and I have found myself this past week listening to a message from God that explains some of the reasons that we so often fail to experience the fulfillment of his promises to us. The message speaks to us when we think that we are doing what the Lord requires, going through the motions of religion: we are worshipping, giving, serving. To all outward appearances, we are God’s people. Yet we know that something is wrong: we wonder where God is in the midst of it all, why we are not experiencing the great promises of his Word.

Malachi would be the last word of prophecy spoken by God to Israel for four-and-a-half centuries, a silence unbroken until John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. This final word spoken by Malachi was written after the temple had been rebuilt by the exiles returning from captivity in Babylon, but before the reforms under Ezra. Malachi was laying the foundations on which Ezra’s reformation would build.

Here is the key: God’s people were disillusioned because they thought they had done all that God required of them, and yet they were experiencing none of the power and glory of the former days of Israel’s splendor. What had gone wrong? Did God not love them as he had loved his people in the past? What of his promise that he would return again in splendor to the Temple if only they would rebuild it? Where was his glory? Where was the splendor of being the people of God?

Malachi will explain to God’s people why we are not experiencing the reality of the power and presence of God in our lives, in our community and in our culture. His words may sound familiar, but we neglect them to our peril. It is both a solemn warning and a gracious promise, and through it God invites us to put him to the test.

Body

1. The heart of God’s message to humanity is simply this: “I have loved you.”

God’s love is displayed in its particularity, in his compassion toward his chosen people. It is important to understand the meaning of the words, “I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated” (vv.2&3). The apostle Paul will later quote this verse (Romans 9:10-13) to prove that God is sovereign in choosing those who are his people, those through whom he will give his gospel to the world. But what are we to make of the idea that the God of love hates someone?

Jesus said that he came to reveal the Father: to show us who God is, and what he is like. In Luke’s gospel (14:26&27), Jesus makes this arresting statement: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”

To hate, in this covenant sense, does not mean to wish ill or to desire to hurt – it does not even mean to fail to love well. It means that it will not permit any relationship, however close, however natural, however tender, to get in the way of God’s purposes. Esau was the oldest and by law was to inherit the blessing. But God’s purposes of salvation had chosen Jacob’s descendents, and nothing Esau could do would enable him to change God’s purposes.

Here is the key: God’s purpose in choosing particular people is not to bless them and then withhold his loving kindness from everyone else. It is rather the choosing of his people through whom he will pour out blessing on all the people of the world.

And so, we also see God’s love displayed in its universality, in his compassion for the whole world. Malachi will repeat this theme throughout this brief work: “Great is the Lord beyond the borders of Israel!” (1:5). “My name will be great among the nations” (1:11). “My name will be feared among the nations” (1:14). Malachi depicts the mission of God’s people as being for the sake of the nations. Whenever we forget that, we begin to presume upon God’s love for us, and to lose the experience of his power and glory in our midst. Why does he dwell in power and glory in the midst of his people? For the sake of the glory of his name among the nations. Israel had forgotten that, and so have many of us. This was at the heart of Israel’s failure to realize God’s glory, and is today here in the western church at the heart of the much-lamented absence of spiritual power.

In the rest this little book, Malachi will spell out the ways that we have turned away from God without even realizing it. He will show us where we need to repent and return to God if we would again be a light to the nations.

2. If the heart of God’s message is that he loves us, the heart of his warning is this: We will fail to experience God’s loving kindness if we fail to cherish his loving kindness. In the remaining verses of chapter one, Malachi points out four of these areas where we must make amends.

We have not cherished our relationship with him. What does it mean to value his name? He is “Father” and “Master” (or “Lord”).

We have not cherished our offerings to him. Do we bring him our first and best, or our last and least?

We have not cherished our worship of him. Do we delight in our times of worship and look forward to them, or do we find worship a chore and look forward to finishing so that we can get on with our lives? God knows our hearts.

We have not cherished our service of him. “What a burden!” said God’s people at the thought of his service. They served him, but it was burdensome. In 1 John 5, John tells us that the final mark of someone who has been born again is that they keep God’s commands, and his commands are not burdensome.

Where, then are we to begin? How are we to keep from despairing?

3. These warnings, solemn as they are, invite us not to miss out on God’s promises, promises that call us to recapture our sense of wonder at God’s loving kindness, and to let his love for us propel us into mission.

God has loved us and through us will make his name great among the nations. We must recapture this sense of mission and purpose in the church of Christ: God’s purpose in choosing his people is to make us a light to all the nations. His heart is for the whole world and all its ethnic groups. When that becomes our heart, then everything changes: we begin to cherish our relationship with him, especially as it is expressed in our offerings, our worship and our service.

Conclusion

Why would we languish in the foothills of half-hearted obedience, giving him our last and our least, when he calls us to the heights, to know and make known his glory among the nations, to show forth to the lost and broken his loving kindness?< >< >< >< >< >< ><–>

Habakkuk 3:3-20

(John 16:20-24, 33; James 1:2)

“Yet I Will Rejoice in the Lord”

Introduction

Habakkuk is a message to us in the hard places of life, times when we are upset with the silence of God in the face of trouble and injustice, and then when we are even more upset with God’s answer to our cry. We have followed Habakkuk on his journey from fear to faith. But even in a posture of complete and submissive trust in the Lord, the prophet confesses to his terror in the face of what is coming. As he records the vision, he says, “I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound… my legs tremble beneath me” (3:16a). Thank God for the prophet’s honesty! We are tempted to think that to be a person of faith is to be fearless. We tend to think that if we really trust the Lord, if our faith is strong enough, we will never tremble with fear in times of trouble. But that is not true, as the Kings of Israel, the psalmists and prophets, not to mention the Lord Jesus himself and his apostles all attest.

We see, in this final prayer song, the prophet move from fear and trembling to singing and rejoicing in the Lord. That, in fact, is the great lesson of this final chapter: that the Bible’s antidote to anxiety and fear is neither resigning yourself stoically to whatever comes, nor somehow working up the courage to face whatever comes, but rather rejoicing in the face of whatever comes. It is learning to rejoice, learning to look forward to what God will do with the relatively small messes we find ourselves in and the enormous messes the world finds itself in. But how do we get there? This morning, I invite you to look with me one more time at the movement in this prophet’s experience that carried him from fear to faith, a faith that sang with joy in the face of what had previously troubled and even terrified him.

Body

1. First, we must be in honest conversation with the living God – not merely talking about him, but talking to him.

2. Second, we must be willing to be quiet, to learn to listen for his voice, to watch how his works unfold in our lives and in human history.

3. Third, we must learn that as long as our focus is on ourselves and our problems, as long as we are merely living for ourselves, we will not understand the times in which we live, or the meaning of our lives.

4. Fourth, we must study God’s acts in the past – his judgment on the nations and his salvation of his people – in order to know what to expect God to do in the future.

5. Finally, we must study his promises to us in the light of all that he has done in the past to redeem his people from trouble.

Then, we start to get excited, we start to anticipate, to expect great things of our great God. We begin to sing with joy, even in the face of disaster. As long as our joy and confidence depend upon the presence circumstances of life – the state of the nation, the health of the economy, our success at work, or in marriage – our joy, our peace, our sense of meaning, are tied to the latest headlines.

Only when we get our eyes off of our circumstances and on to the Lord, only when we bow the knee to him and confess that his ways are right and just, only when we wait upon him with expectation that he who redeemed his people in trouble will do so again for us, only then will we say:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places (3:17-19).

Habakkuk 3:1-3

(Luke 1:46-55; Ephesians 2:1-10)

“In Wrath Remember Mercy”

Introduction

This little book of the Bible is a word for us in the hard places of life. It opens with the prophet questioning God’s silence in the face of injustice and violence. “Where are you, Lord, and why do you not answer my cry?” Then the Lord answers, and his answer seems worse than his silence. He will end the injustice and violence of his people, not by sending the sweet season of revival and reformation for which the prophet hoped, but rather by sending the armies of Babylon to plunder and destroy Jerusalem and carry their leading people into captivity. What do we do when the Lord’s answers seem to make things worse than they were when we asked him to intervene?

The prophet goes to his watchtower, to wait for the Lord to act, to see what the Lord will do, and to record the vision the Lord gives him.  The essence of the vision is a revelation of the difference between those the world admires and those whom God counts as righteous. The great of this world trust in themselves and seek their own pleasure, while those the Lord counts as righteous have come to an end of self-confidence and self-worship, have placed their confidence and hope in the Lord and are seeking his pleasure.

We dare not miss the fact that the vision addresses us all. It concerns not only the world, but also the people of God. It challenges us not only in our fears, but also when we think that we don’t need the Lord, that we have things covered, when we think that we are more gifted, more competent, more worthy of the good things of life, of the blessings of God, than those whom we see as weak or failures or more wicked than we see ourselves as being. It calls us to consider well where we have placed our confidence in facing life and death and to ask whose pleasure it is that we are seeking.

God promises that when he is done using Babylon to discipline his people, he will punish Babylon. The second chapter ends with a call to be silent before the Lord: “The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent before him.” It is a call to worship. And in this posture of silent worship before the Lord, Habakkuk composes a prayer, a song of praise and worship.

The entire final chapter consists of this prayer-song to the Lord, and this morning we will simply look at the first three verses, which answer three crucial questions for those of us who would learn to pray prayers that honor God and move his heart to act on our behalf in the midst of life’s troubles: First, how should we pray, then what should we pray, and finally, what should we expect to see God do in answer to our prayers?

Body

1.     If we would pray in a way that honors God, how should we pray (3:2a)? We should approach prayer with our hearts and minds focused fully upon the Lord. In true prayer, we get to know the Lord a little better:

·         First, pray in the fear of the Lord.

·         Then, pray in faith in the Lord.

·         And finally, pray in the joy of the Lord.

2.     If we would pray in a way that honors God, what should we pray (3:2b)?

We should pray for those things that will bring him glory:

·         We should begin by offering prayers of submission to God’s will.

·         We should pray for the revival of God’s people.

·         We should pray for the mission entrusted to God’s people.

·         We should plead for God’s mercy in the midst of his judgment.

3.     If we pray in this way, what should we expect to see happen  (3:3)?

We should pray in expectation that God not only hears, but answers the prayers of his people, as he has always promised to do:

·         We should expect the Lord to act, to reveal his glory among the nations.

·         We should expect the people who see his glory to respond with praise.

Conclusion

In the midst of a national crisis, a crisis that threatened his own safety and peace and that at first caused him tremendous anxiety and fear, the prophet now finds himself at peace, with a prospect of mercy in the midst of judgment and joy in the midst of calamity. How? What happened to change the prophet’s heart and mind? He turned from self-worship to the worship of our great God and King. This is always, finally, the heart of the matter: whom do you worship? Whose pleasure do you seek? As long as you and I seek the Lord in order to try to recruit him to do our will, to help us to achieve our dreams, as long as our prayers focus on ourselves or our problems and fears, or on the world around us, we cannot understand or pray effectively for ourselves or our families and friends, or for the world around us.

Our confidence and joy and hope are restored by going to the watchtower and waiting upon the Lord, seeking his face in submissive prayer, trusting him to do what is right – whatever the cost to our peace and prosperity – and expecting him to act in his own good time to bring glory to himself and good to his people.

Habakkuk 2:1-20

(John 17:20-26; 2 Corinthians 4:5-10, 16-18)

“The Knowledge of God’s Glory”

Introduction

Last week we heard the prophet’s heart-cry: Where is God when our world seems to be falling apart? Why does God remain silent in the face of violence, injustice and oppression? Why does he not answer our prayers by sending revival to his backslidden people and reformation to a nation in decline? God’s answer is more terrifying than his silence. He tells Habakkuk that he has heard his cry and is going to bring about what the prophet desires, but not by the means the prophet had imagined. God will discipline his people by raising up Babylon, whose army will conquer Judah, plunder their treasures and carry their leading people into captivity, destroying Jerusalem, and burning the magnificent temple built by Solomon.

What are we to do when God’s solutions seem far worse to us than our problems? The answer is given: Watch and wait for God to act. Write the vision – it is not just for you, but also for those to whom God will send you. And trust him, your sovereign God and King, whatever comes. Know that he is working out his purposes in history.

This morning, we will look more closely at the vision that Habakkuk faithfully recorded, and which we know (from recorded history) came true as predicted. The essence of the prophet’s question was the problem of how God can use the wicked to discipline his people. In the vision is God’s answer, and at the heart of God’s answer is a clear statement of the contrast between merely human religions and the religion of the Bible.

In this second chapter, we see and hear the heart of the vision: God’s definition of the difference between the righteous and the wicked. It is different from what we find in most religions, where the righteous have cause for pride because they have achieved by their own religious exercise and goodness what others have failed to achieve. But in the Scriptures, the righteous are humbled by the grace of the One who alone can redeem the mess we have all made of our lives, and give us hope of a life worth living, of loving intimacy with the One who made us for himself.

This is followed by a five-fold warning to the wicked, five “woes,” which are curses. Biblical sentences beginning with the words, “Blessed are” are clearly words of blessing and benediction, good words of promise and hope. Sentences that begin with “Woe is” are curses, stern warnings of destruction to those to whom they are addressed.

Finally, the chapter closes with a two-fold promise to those who trust in the Lord. These blessings and curses, promises and warnings, are as relevant today as they were in the days of Habakkuk, and call us to wait and watch, to trust and obey.

Body

1. The heart of the vision: the wicked versus the righteous (1:1-5).

· The wicked proudly trusts in himself, and lives to please himself (2:4&5).

· The righteous humbly trusts in the Lord, and lives to please him (2:4)

2. A five-fold warning to those whose trust is in themselves (2:6-20):

· Who build their wealth through dishonesty (2:6f).

· Who build their house through injustice (2:9f).

· Who build their city through violence (2:12f)

· Who betray their neighbor for physical pleasure (2:15f).

· Who betray their Lord for spiritual pleasure (2:18f).

3. A two-fold promise to those whose trust is in the Lord (2:14, 20):

· Encouragement in mission: One day, all will know that God’s glory fills the earth (2:14)

· Encouragement in worship: One day all will know that God’s glory fills the heavens (2:20)

Conclusion

We see injustice and violence and our hearts cry out. But God sees it too, and the day is coming when he will bring down the wicked and expose them for what they are, destroying them forever, giving justice to the oppressed, lifting up those who have been cast down, wiping away tears and making all things new. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of his glory. All shall know at last that the Lord is in his holy temple, and in that day, this noisy earth will be silent before him, as every knee bows. Then will break forth the mighty chorus of heavenly worship as every tongue joins in the great confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And he shall reign forever and ever.

Habakkuk 1:1-2:4
(Matthew 24:1-14; 2 Peter 3:8-14)
“Where Is God In Times of Trouble?”

Introduction

Where is God when the world around us seems to be coming apart at the seams? How can God stand idly by while terrorists wreak havoc? How can God watch his creation being fouled and polluted by plumes of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico? How can he remain silent while a woman is raped, a child abused, a man beaten down? Where is God when life hurts, when injustice fills the land, when his own people live no differently than the nations around them, when they cry out to him day and night for deliverance?

These are the kinds questions posed by the Prophet Habakkuk in the waning days of the Kingdom of Judah. Israel had already divided after the death of King Solomon into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Northern Kingdom has been defeated and dispersed among the nations by the Assyrians, and now the Southern Kingdom of Judah is languishing, its leaders refusing to heed their prophets who warn them that they are on the same path to destruction if they do not repent and return to the Lord.

Habakkuk joins the cry, the great prayer to God to revive and restore his people, and it is in this context that we have the privilege of walking with the prophet as he moves, in Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s description, “from fear to faith.” This morning, look with me as Habakkuk describes the problem of trying to understand what God is up to in times of trouble, and then as God reveals to him the solution, the way to know and rest in God’s goodness and grace.

Body

1. The Problem:

God’s strange silence (1:1-11)

God’s even stranger answers (1:12-17)

God’s sovereignty over human history (1:5,6)

2. The Answer:

Learning to watch and wait (2:1)

Learning to write the vision (2:2,3)

Learning to trust the promise (2:4)

Conclusion

Here at the last, we have the word that would transform the apostle Paul’s understanding of how we are made right with God, and through Paul’s Roman letter, these words of Habakkuk would be used to save the likes of Martin Luther and John Wesley, as well as untold millions of others, because Habakkuk took his stand at the watchtower, and then recorded plainly for all to understand what God revealed to him: “I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told,” but for those who have seen the vision, who have heard the story, “the righteous shall live by his faith.”

Matthew 25:31-46

(Isaiah 61:1-3; James 2:8-26)

“As You Did It to One of the Least of These, You Did It to Me”

Introduction

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus begins and ends his public ministry with a description of the kind of life that is pleasing to God, and with a warning that how we choose to live our lives has eternal consequences. In his first sermon, Jesus describes as blessed by God those whom the world looks down on – the poor, the meek, the persecuted – and then warns that not everyone who calls him Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do his Father’s will. Here, in his final sermon, Jesus again calls blessed those who have lived counterculturally, valuing what this world despises, and promises life to those who do the Father’s will.

Now we must be honest: If these words did not come from Jesus, if they were not part of the Scripture, most of us evangelicals would reject them as heretical, as promoting a view of salvation by good works rather than by grace through faith in Christ. But since it is Christ who is speaking, we must hear and seek to understand.

If we grasp the message at the heart of this text, the Scriptures will begin to open to us and show us a holistic salvation, one that does not set Paul over against James, but that gives all apostolic teaching equal weight rather than deciding what is of greatest importance and then placing the rest in a subordinate position. What do I mean? Well, just listen to the men who wrote the New Testament:

Paul writes, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

James writes, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26).

Peter writes, “Above all, keep loving each one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

John writes, “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 1:17).

The first key to understanding this passage in a life-giving way, rather than finding ourselves back under the law as a yoke and a burden, is found in verse 34: “Come, you who are blessed by Father.” This little word, “blessed,” is the key to both the Sermon on the Mount, and to this final sermon: In both cases, Jesus is speaking of those who have received God’s grace through faith, and who are being transformed by the work of God within them, loving God and one another, and serving the world around them in response to God’s grace. Their lives provide the evidence of their salvation.

Body

1.      Just as surely as each of us will die one day, so too the end of history is coming for each one of us. There is no escaping it.

2.      Jesus will be enthroned in glory as King of the nations, and will separate all of us into two groups: the righteous and the unrighteous.

3.      The righteous will be given their inheritance, eternal life in God’s kingdom. The unrighteous will be sent away from God’s presence into eternal punishment.

4.      Here is the key to understanding the scene: Jesus describes the righteous as those who have treated people whom this world values least as people of great worth. He describes the unrighteous as those who have treated people whom this world values least as people of little worth.

Conclusion

If our experience of salvation begins with Jesus’ call, “Come, follow me,” then our experience of eternity will begin with the words, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” “Lord, when did we do these things for you?” “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

(Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Matthew 22:34-40)

“The Preeminent Mark of the Spirit’s Presence”

Introduction

This Pentecost Sunday morning, I want us to consider together the preeminent sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence, the great spring from which the church’s life should flow. It is the church’s core value because it is the core value of God’s kingdom. It is, in other words, what God desires to do in and through us whenever we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Well, then, what is it? The summary of the OT law is this: Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus affirmed these words as describing the great desire of God’s heart. At the end of his life, Jesus said to his disciples, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). In his clearest statement of the gospel of grace, the letter to the Galatians, Paul summarizes his message in these words: “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6). The apostle John, in his first letter, repeats the call to love one another, “for love comes from God.” He goes on to say, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:7,16).

In our text, Paul is addressing a church that is greatly gifted and has experienced the power of the Holy Spirit’s presence. But its strengths have become its weaknesses, because it lacks the core value of love. Its gifts have led to pride, boasting and division. Paul wants them to realize that everything they are and everything they do amounts in the end to nothing if it is not an expression of the love that moved the living God to create us, and when we had rebelled against him, to save us and restore us to himself, a love that his Spirit pours into the lives of those whom he has redeemed.

There has never, to my knowledge, been an ecumenical church council or gathering of biblical scholars to discuss the implications of what is clearly the central theme of the Scriptures, and the core value of God’s kingdom. The theological center of most evangelical thinking has been faith, salvation by grace through faith in Christ. Others have centered their thinking on hope, and focused on the future that God has promised to his children in a new heaven and new earth.  These are certainly foundational concepts.  We receive God’s grace through faith, and our anxiety and despair are turned to hope for the future.  Here Paul makes it clear that while “these three remain, faith, hope and love … the greatest of these is love” (13:13).  Yet, the church simply does not emphasize love in the same way as it does faith and hope. We need to revisit this text frequently, for Paul tells us here, not only that love is essential, but why love is essential.

Body

1. Love is the key to meaning (13:1-3).

Without love, all that I am amounts to nothing (13:2). Paul begins by describing people who have the kind of demonstrative gifts that were so highly valued at Corinth: speaking in tongues, gifts of prophecy and discernment, faith that works miracles. All of these things would suggest a profound and mature spirituality. But Paul says that without love, those so gifted amount to nothing.

Without love, all that I do amounts to nothing (13:3). He describes those whom we most revere as holy: those who give all they have to the poor, and those who give their bodies in a martyr’s death. Yet Paul again warns that such things, wonderful as they appear, are worth nothing to God if they are not motivated by love. Why is this so?

2. Love is the key to character (13:4-7).

What Paul describes here is basically what in his Galatian letter he refers to as “the fruit of the Spirit,” that is, the mark of a life being lived under the renewing influence of God’s Spirit. That is the goal, it is what we seek when we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.” In Galatians, love leads the list. Here, Paul shows that love leads the list, not because it is one of the fruit of the Spirit, but because it is the essence of all of the fruit. All the other aspects of a gracious and mature character are quite awful when encountered only in their formal expression, without arising from a heart possessed by self-sacrificing love.

3. Love is the key to wisdom (13:8-12).

A mature person recognizes the limits of his knowledge. He is not arrogant and un-teachable. With Paul, he says, “Now I know in part” (13:12). He is able to dismiss the pretensions and presumptions of modernity, without giving in to the pessimism and confusion of post-modernity. He says, “I am able to know truth, but not yet all the truth there is to know. With regard to God’s truth, I am often in the position of a child who is learning, growing, seeking, but needs others to help, to teach and mentor.”

This loving humility makes us treasure the cultural and theological breadth of the church of Jesus Christ, so that we can discover more and more of what God has revealed by discovering that part of God’s truth that he has shown more clearly from his Word and world-setting to those of other eras or cultures. Mission becomes, not just our gift to others, but also their gift back to us.

4. All of this is so because love is the very essence of the life of God (13:13).

Of the three things that remain – faith, hope and love – only love will survive death. Faith is the acceptance of truth based on the credible testimony of others. When we are at last with the Lord, faith will have changed to sight. Hope is that for which we long. When what we longed for is present, we no longer hope; we enjoy. But love is the heart of the relationship that God intended us to have with him and with one another. It begins now and never ends.

Conclusion

When we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven,” we are praying for God’s love to seek and find us, and through us, to seek and find others, beginning with those closest to us, and reaching out to those whom we would never even notice or care about, had God not first sought us and found us, and poured his love into our hearts.

When we ask the Lord to let us experience more fully and completely than ever before the power of his life poured out at Pentecost, we are praying that our lives, our desires and affections, our words and our deeds, might be motivated and marked supremely by the self-sacrificing love of the One who loves us and gave himself for us.