Fresh Love Series

• God loves his people with a fierce and jealous love that requires them to respond with fidelity and trust.

SLIDE #1

Introduction

• Today we begin a new four-week series in the book of Malachi.

• This four-week series teaches us to love the things that God loves.

• Through the words of the prophet Malachi, we learn God’s love for His people, His name, His covenant, and His messenger. These same passions are to be present in the lives of his people today.

• The Book of Malachi is a book that is extremely applicable for us today because Malachi spoke to the hearts of people who were troubled, whose circumstances of financial insecurity, religious skepticism, and personal disappointments were very similar to the lives people experience today; both saved and lost people.

• Tragedy and unmet expectations often cause us to question God’s intentions and promises toward us. Does he still care? Is he still capable of accomplishing what he promised?

• Why is he taking so long? These are normal human reactions to extreme circumstances.

• Have you ever experienced these feelings and emotions?

• These seasons, though unpleasant and trying, are times of God’s gracious refining of our faith.

• Far from reason to abandon faith, these unexpected seasons are actually evidence that God’s purpose for his people is still intact.

• Malachi writes this around 430 B.C.

• The people of God have returned from exile in the land of Babylon almost 100 years before, the Temple was rebuilt in 516 BC.

• However, the conditions are not favorable for them.

• Only a small portion of the nation has returned, and those now languish amidst poverty, famine, and continuing threats from neighboring nations.

• In the midst of their frustrations, they have begun to question God’s goodness, his love, and his ability to keep his promises toward them (v. 2).

• Let’s turn to Malachi 1:1-2 as we begin.

• SLIDE#2

• Malachi 1:1-2 (CSB) 1A pronouncement: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi. 2“I have loved you,” says the Lord . Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord ’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob,

• SLIDE #3

I. Fresh love, real love.

• Following a long period of captivity in Babylon, the Jewish nation finally returned to the Promised Land under the leadership of Zerubbabel and rebuilt the Temple (516 BC).

• Once they returned to Jerusalem and when the Temple was rebuilt, the people anxiously awaited the Lord to restore the nation to its former glory.

• However, by the time Malachi comes on the scene, more than a century passed, meanwhile, the people grew complacent.

• The prophet Malachi exhorted them, especially the priesthood, to repent and renew their commitment to God.

• Malachi warned them that even though God loved them, he was not indifferent to their complacency and would return like a raging furnace on the glorious Day of the Lord, sending his prophet Elijah before him.

• Malachi comes to the people with a broken heart because of their indifference toward God.

• Malachi shared the message from God that God loved the people, yet the people were not feeling the love.

• Life’s trials had blinded the people, they felt alone like there was no hope or no God.

• The people were spiritually depleted, and this depletion was the root cause of the nations insulting religious practices, along with their moral decay and their spiritual apathy.

• Malachi was seeking to offer the people a fresh faith, and that fresh faith included a fresh love.

• Because of the time that had passed since the return from exile, people lost hope.

• Have you ever been in a position where you lost hope? How did you react?

• Have you been in a relationship where you lost hope? How did that make you feel?

• When God proclaimed His love for the people, they did not believe Him because they had a view of how God should look to them!

• The nation believed that IF God loved, them, they would be back on top again, that the former glory and prosperity of the nation would be restored and possibly greater than ever!

• When we face difficult circumstances, it is so easy to think that God is not with us, that He is punishing us, or He simply does not care.

• We tend not to feel loved if we are not loved the way we THINK we should be loved.

• All along God loved the people, yet the people were not prosperous at this point, so they questioned God’s love for them.

• God responds to their doubts concerning His love for them by using the comparison of Jacob and Esau, who represented Israel and Edom.