Vibrant
(Malachi 3:16-18)
1. This week, Kokomo was in the news because Barrack Obama visited our city.
2. I was not at the rally, and, although I have found this year’s politics entertaining, and although I have never missed an election, I don’t get too enthused about politics.
3. A sister in the Lord was sharing some comments made by Jan Silvious this past week on Moody radio. Silvious stated that controlling type people (control or power freaks) don’t usually have relationships, just arrangements. That thought stuck in my mind.
4. With politicians, we might have an arrangement. It is something like this, "I’ll vote for you if you attempt to do this or that." It is sad, however, if our relationships with spouses, families, and friends are the same way.
5. Yet many more do not really want a relationship with God, they want an arrangement. The children of Israel at the time of Malachi mostly wanted an arrangement: they would serve God only to the degree that they received the payback they wanted.
6. But some -- a minority -- wanted to return to the Chief Shepherd of their souls. They wanted to know and serve God. They craved a vibrant relationship with their Maker.
Main Idea: To be born again is to be regenerated, and to be regenerated means to be brought to spiritual life. Like New Testament believers, OT believers knew were likewise regenerated and thus spiritually alive.
TS---- > This vibrancy is seen in actions by men and God.
I. Demonstrated In Fellowship: The Faithful TALKED to One Another (16a)
A. They FEARED the Lord
Deuteronomy 10:12, "And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul…"
1. Reverence motivated them to study His Word
2. Reverence motivated them to conform to His Word
3. People who play at religion do not fear God
4. If my kids were too busy to listen to what I had to say, if they did not talk to me except when they needed money, and if they broke the rules I set for them, but sent me a Father’s Day card, all would not have been well in the Vasicek household
B. They INSPIRED one another to be faithful
1. Hebrews 10:23-25, "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."
2. The importance of talking to one another
C. This is the PROTOTYPE for a church meeting
From Gilligan’s Island
"Gilligan had gotten his feelings hurt and decided to move away to the other side of the Island to live alone in a cave. Immediately, this became a miserable existence for Gilligan—he was all alone. But also miserable for everyone else on the island—one of their own was no longer among them, in fellowship with them...and there was a terrible void. They missed him at the dinner table. They missed his jokes, his laughter, his gentleness. They even missed his clumsy screw-ups. I think at one point in the episode they were sitting around the dinner table taking turns talking about the specific things they missed about him. So what did they do? I think it began with Skipper. He decided to leave the rest and go live with Gilligan so he wouldn’t be alone. Then another person did the same. Then another. Until finally, all seven people were together again on the other side of the island in Gilligan’s cave. In true spiritual community, we either make it together, or we don’t make it...at least not in a healthy way."
Bill Huffhine, Sermon Central
To be born again is to be regenerated, and to be regenerated means to be brought to spiritual life. Like New Testament believers, OT believers knew were likewise regenerated and thus spiritually alive. This vibrancy is seen in actions by men &God.
II. Applauded by Heaven: God RECORDED their stand (16b)
A. The Lord LISTENED
1. Did you know that God has a habit of eavesdropping?
2. God notes those who follow Him, even when most people have forsaken Him or severely compromised His will be either biblical ignorance or disregard.
3. We must be willing to be among the unpopular because we have convictions --on two fronts: (1) compromised believers and (2) the world. The first category is what the devout Jews apparently faced in Malachi’s day, and what we often face here in the Bible belt…
B. A SCROLL was written
1. Exodus 32:32, " But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."
2. Psalm 69:28, "May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous."
3. Psalm 139:16, " All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
4. Daniel 7:10, " A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened."
➢ God’s book: Isaiah 49:16: "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."
➢ "Malachi’s term ’book of remembrance’ is unique to him. It conveys, in highly anthropomorphic language, the idea of a divine ledger in which the names of God’s covenant children are recorded for posterity. There is not a chance that even one name can ever be forgotten in such a system." (Ralph Smith, Word Bible Commentary) Do you ever feel like God has forgotten you?
To be born again is to be regenerated, and to be regenerated means to be brought to spiritual life. Like New Testament believers, OT believers knew were likewise regenerated and thus spiritually alive. This vibrancy is seen in actions by men &God.
III. Embraced By God: A SPECIAL People Called Out from the Crowd (17-18)
A. This is a preview of the CHURCH
1. Last time, we talked about consumer-type professors of religion
2. The genuine believer may have been part of a covenant people by birth, but he/she was not saved until they covenanted with God on a personal basis.
3. "They will be mine" suggests that not everyone is God’s in the same sense; otherwise why bother singling them out and saying, "they will be mine."
4. This is the Scriptural concept of the "remnant."
5. God has always been into the remnant thing. While many Americans have embraced the Texas mentality, "Bigger is better," God prefers the chosen few. When Gideon’s army was 32,000 men, God reduced it down to 300.
6. In God’s economy, quality trumps quantity, and quality equals faithfulness to His Word.
B. We are God’s TREASURED Possession (17a)
Deuteronomy 26:18, "And the LORD has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands."
C. We are treated with Son-like COMPASSION (17b)
Matthew 7:9-10, "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?"
D. We are the WHEAT separated from the tares (18)
the first few verses of chapter 4 talk about when this will occur, but that we will look at next week…
Matthew 13: 24-30 (NASB)
Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also.
"The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ’Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
"And he said to them, ’An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ’Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’
"But he said, ’No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."’"
To be born again is to be regenerated, and to be regenerated means to be brought to spiritual life. Like New Testament believers, OT believers knew were likewise regenerated and thus spiritually alive. This vibrancy is seen in actions by men &God.
CONCLUSION
1. Do you have an authentic relationship with God through faith in His Son, or an arrangement: God, get off my back and prosper me, and I’ll do these things for You?
2. If you do not have an authentic relationship, let’s start with this: God loves you and wants you, not what you do. God wants to use you, but He doesn’t need you. God wants to give you a new life, not a probationary loan.
