As most of you know, I met Mary the summer after my freshman year at the University of Arizona when we were both working as Student Hosts for the orientation of incoming freshmen. Although I was immediately attracted to her, I was pretty shy around attractive girls back then, so it usually took me a while to get up the nerve to actually ask one of them out. But over the two weeks we worked together I got to know her a bit, both during the time we worked together and in some of the social gatherings that all of the Student Hosts took part in during that time.
So when there was a get together one night and she offered to give me a ride, I began to think that maybe there was an opportunity to ask her out. But later that evening there was a miscommunication and I thought she had left the event without me, but she had actually only left temporarily to help out one of the other female student hosts. But since I wasn’t sure she was coming back I got a ride back to campus with someone else. So I mistakenly assumed that she just didn’t have any interest in me.
Fortunately for me, however, I was wrong about that, and even more importantly, Mary continued to pursue me even after we finished our two week job on campus. At the time I was working at the Lucky Wishbone and she kept coming by to see if I was at work there. Somehow, she kept coming by when I wasn’t working, which is really amazing considering how many hours I was working over the summer. So she bought a whole lot of sodas there over a couple of week period.
Some of my co-workers began to ask about this good looking woman who kept coming by to see if I was at work, and I figured out pretty quickly by their descriptions that it was Mary. So I finally got up enough nerve to call her up and ask her out. And the rest, as they say, is history. But I often wonder whether I would have pursued Mary if she hadn’t pursued me.
As persistent as Mary was, we all have a God who is much more persistent in pursuing us. And when we understand that He does that because He loves us so much, hopefully we’ll pursue Him with as much or even more fervor that that with which I pursued Mary beginning that summer.
That’s why we’re going to spend the next eight weeks or so exploring the book written by the Italian prophet – Malachi. Although Malachi’s prophecy was written nearly 2,500 years ago, it is just as relevant for us today as it was for Israel when those words were written. As we’ll see, Malachi describes how God has lovingly pursued His chosen people – and that includes us – and how we are to respond as a result of that pursuing love.
So go ahead and open your Bibles to the book of Malachi. It is a small book at the very end of the Old Testament, right before the gospel of Matthew in our Bibles. It’s only 4 short chapters long – only 3 chapters in the Hebrew Bible – but it contains a wealth of profitable teaching for us.
Let’s use verse 1 to help us understand the context of Malachi’s prophecy:
The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
(Malachi 1:1 ESV)
Background
Nothing is really known about Malachi than what is revealed in this book. His name appears nowhere else in Scripture. And unlike most of the other prophets, Malachi tells us nothing about his family background or even the historical setting in which he ministers.
So really all we know for certain about Malachi is his name, the meaning of which is certainly significant:
• The author: Malachi = “my messenger”
Malachi is God’s messenger, a fact that is confirmed by the fact that what he writes is “the word of the Lord.” Like all Scripture, these words were penned by a human author, but they were inspired by the Holy Spirit and are the words of God.
• The audience: Israel
I think it’s important for me to take a few moments to share a brief history of Israel in order for us to understand the historical context of the book.
In Genesis 12, God called Abram to leave his home in Ur, which is modern day Iraq, and go to a land that He would show Abram. God promised that He would make Abram’s descendents into a great nations through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And God even changed his name to Abraham, which means “exalted father”, as a lasting reminder of His promise to Abraham.
As God fulfilled that promise, Israel grew into a great nation. But they were later enslaved in Egypt for over 400 years until God released them from that bondage under the leadership of Moses. After wandering in the wilderness because of their disobedience to God, God eventually brought them into the land that He had promised to Abraham hundreds of years earlier. There, the commonwealth of Israel experienced periods of obedience and blessing and periods of disobedience and cursing, just as God had predicted in the book of Deuteronomy.
The high point of Israel’s history came under the godly leadership of King David. But after his death, things rapidly went downhill. After the death of David’s son, Solomon, Israel was split into two separate kingdoms – the northern ten tribes referred to as Israel and the southern two tribes known as Judah. Because of their disobedience, both kingdoms were conquered by foreign powers. Israel was conquered by Assyria in 722 BC and the ten tribes became scattered among the surrounding nations. Judah was conquered by Babylon in 587 BC and many of its people were taken into captivity.
Eventually the Babylonians were overthrown by Persia and the people were allowed to return to Jerusalem. The first group to return was under the leadership of Zerubbabel and during the ministry of the prophet Haggai they laid the foundations of the temple. The temple was completed in 516 BC during the ministry of Zechariah.
Ezra led a second group of people back to Jerusalem in 458 BC. There was a great revival that took place as Ezra called people back to the Word of God and re-established the temple worship.
A third group returns under the leadership of Nehemiah in 445 BC for the purpose of rebuilding the walls of the city. Nehemiah returned to Persia in 433 BC and then went back to Jerusalem in 424 BC.
The internal evidence in the Book of Malachi makes it likely that it was written during the period that Nehemiah had returned to Persia:
o The temple worship was in operation, so it had to be after the rebuilding of the temple
o The sins that Malachi deals with are very similar to the ones that Nehemiah addresses upon his return to Jerusalem.
So Malachi is ministering during a time when God’s people have become lukewarm in their relationship with God. Although the temple worship is back in operation once again, we’ll see that the people were really just going through the motions. So Malachi, just like his contemporary Nehemiah, addresses the sins of Israel. But it is important to note that his prophecy is addressed “to Israel” and not “against Israel”. That is because, of God’s love for His people and His desire to see them to return to Him with all their heart.
So with that historical context in mind, let’s look at the beginning words of Malachi’s prophecy:
“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 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 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.’” Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the LORD beyond the border of Israel!”
(Malachi 1:2-5 ESV)
It’s quite instructive that Malachi begins a prophecy which is going to rebuke Israel for a number of sins with God’s declaration of love for His people. But the people immediately respond to that proclamation with the first of seven sarcastic questions that form the structure for Malachi’s prophecy.
That first question reveals that Israel was like an insensitive wife, oblivious to the frustration of her loving husband. If you had asked Israel about her relationship with her Lord, she would have replied that things were just fine. But from God’s perspective, things weren’t okay. His wife, Israel, was oblivious to His love and that was reflected in the way that they were treating God.
The main problem is that Israel was focusing on their circumstances, not on God’s love for them. And judging merely by those circumstances, you really can’t blame Israel for asking, “How have you loved us?” Although they had been back in the land for about 125 years, the temple had been rebuilt for about 100 years and Nehemiah had recently led them to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, there were still a lot of problems. The rebuilt temple was only a shadow of its former glory. There were only about 100,000 Israelites back in their land and they were still under the rule of a Persian king and his appointed governor. They had no army to protect themselves from foreign enemies. Their farms were not producing because of drought.
In a lot of ways, their situation wasn’t a whole lot different than that which we face in 21st century America. It’s easy to look around at the circumstances in which we live and wonder how things could be like this if God really loves us:
• We live in a culture characterized by violence in which bad things regularly happen to good people.
• God and His Word and His people are increasingly mocked and persecuted for their faith. For instance, just a couple of months ago, the National Park Service began requiring churches to obtain a special use permit at least 48 hours before they could baptize anyone in a public river. And even more recently a church in Olympia, Washington was denied a permit to baptize people in a public park.
• We constantly see the wicked prospering and the righteous suffering.
And when we focus on those circumstances, it’s pretty easy to think that if God really loved us we wouldn’t be hurting so much. So Malachi begins his prophecy with the message that God does indeed love His people. Let’s see how Malachi describes that…
God’s pursuing love is…
• Unfailing
When God says, “I have loved you,” the verb there is in the perfect tense in Hebrew. That indicates that it is an action that began in the past and continues into the presence. It could accurately be translated:
“I have loved you and I continue to love you.”
Considering Israel’s response to God’s love throughout its history, that is a remarkable thing for God to say. Even though Israel continually turned its back on God, just like it was doing once again, God still loved them.
When I was preparing the message this week, my first inclination was to describe this aspect of God’s love as “unconditional”, but as I thought about it some more I really wasn’t comfortable using that term, because the Scripture is full of passages that indicate that there is a conditional aspect of God’s love.
In the sense that God extends His love to all without distinction and offers salvation to all without conditions of merit or worth, I suppose it could be considered to be unconditional.
But even when God promised His unfailing love to Israel, there were some conditions attached to His promise to love them:
And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.
(Deuteronomy 7:12-13 ESV)
God promised to love Israel with His steadfast love, which is how the ESV consistently treats the Hebrew phrase that describes God’s unfailing love. But that love was conditional on Israel’s obedience to the Word of God. But what is unfathomable to our human minds is that God continued to love Israel even when they chose not to obey Him. Certainly God has disciplined them for their disobedience, but He never quit loving them even when they quit loving Him. That’s why God could say:
“I have loved you and I continue to love you.”
• Unmerited
If we’re honest, I think we’ll all admit that we really struggle with what God says in reply when the people question His love for them:
Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.
I think a great deal of our problem is because we tend to think of love and hate in terms of our emotions. But God’s love and hate is not about emotions, but rather about His sovereign choice. Love and hate are an act of God’s will.
This is certainly a passage where we can argue about some of the subtleties of God’s words and miss the big idea. Fortunately, Paul’s commentary on this passage helps us to keep our focus on what is most important here:
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
(Romans 9:10-16 ESV)
The main point that God is making here in Malachi is that His love for Israel is completely undeserved. That principle is demonstrated both in the personal lives of Jacob and Esau and in the history of the nations that developed from their descendants.
Let’s look first at their personal lives. Jacob and Esau were twin brothers. As the older brother, Esau would have normally been the one who earned the birthright and the blessing. But even before the boys were born, God revealed that it was his sovereign choice that Jacob and his descendants would be the recipients of God’s blessing:
And the LORD said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the older shall serve the younger.”
(Genesis 25:23 ESV)
As Paul points out, God made that choice even before the boys were born and had done anything right or wrong. God’s sovereign choice to love Jacob did not depend on human will or performance, but was completely dependent solely on God’s grace.
The same is true when it came to the nations which would arise from both boys. In particular, God makes it clear to Israel that His sovereign choice to choose them was not based in any way on who they were or what they had done, but it was strictly an act of His grace:
“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
(Deuteronomy 7:6-8 ESV)
We clearly see here the idea that God’s love is a matter of His sovereign choice and not a matter of emotion. God’s love for Israel is evidenced by the fact that He chose them in spite of the fact that they had done nothing to earn or deserve that love. And that is still how God loves His people. His love is always a result of His grace and not based on anything we do to earn it.
Before we leave this point, we need to deal with the idea that God hated Esau. Once again, we need to keep in mind here that God’s hate is not a matter of emotion, but rather of His sovereign choice. We also need to note that in Hebrew thought the idea of love and hate is often used as hyperbole to express a contrast between choices. Certainly Jesus used the idea of love and hate like that when He spoke these familiar words:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
(Luke 14:26 ESV)
Jesus is obviously not teaching that we are to hate our family. That would violate a lot of Scripture. But what He is pointing out is that loving Him means making a choice to prefer Him over our human relationships. That is confirmed by Jesus’ own words:
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
(Matthew 10:37-38 ESV)
So when God says that He hates Esau, He is saying that He has made a sovereign choice to choose Jacob over Esau. And for most of us, our immediate reaction to that sovereign choice is “that’s not fair.” But in reality what is not fair is that God chose to love Jacob. He, and the nation of Israel, were both completely undeserving of God’s love. But He loved them anyway.
• Unlimited
In this passage we see two aspects of the unlimited nature of God’s love.
First, God’s love is unlimited in time – it is everlasting. God loved Israel in the past from the time He called them to be His people, He loves them in the present, and He will continue to love them in the future.
But it is also unlimited in scope. Notice in verse 5 that God’s love would result in the greatness of God being known beyond the borders of Israel. That was always God’s plan for Israel. When He first made His promise to Abram to make his descendents into a great nation, He also revealed that the purpose of Israel would be to bless all the nations of the earth:
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
(Genesis 12:2-3 ESV)
God’s unfailing, undeserved, and unlimited love for Israel was to be a blessing to everyone, not just to Israel.
Hopefully, now you see why I have referred to God’s love for us as a pursuing love. There is certainly no doubt that He pursued Israel. Even though they continually rejected Him and ran away from Him, God loved them so much that He just kept going after them. And because He loves them that much, He is going to speak through His messenger, Malachi, to once again call them back to Him.
But God’s pursuing love didn’t end there in Israel 2,500 years ago. God still loves and pursues His people today. And the message that Malachi delivers to Israel is the same message that he has for us this morning:
God desires for me to pursue Him
in the same way He has pursued me
God’s mandate to Malachi was to call people back into a vibrant relationship with Him. As we’re going to see in future weeks, the people hadn’t completely fallen away from God. But in many ways they were merely going through the motions when it came to their relationship with God.
But Malachi wastes no time in getting to the heart of the matter. The reason people weren’t pursuing God because they didn’t really believe that He loved them, even in the face of the overwhelming evidence of his pursuing love for them.
Perhaps that describes your relationship with God today. Perhaps, like the people of Israel, you look at the circumstances around you and you question whether God really loves you. Maybe you’re struggling with a difficult marriage, or you have rebellious children, or you can barely make ends meet with your finances. Maybe you’re experiencing chronic health issues. And then you look around and see that those who don’t want anything to do with God are seemingly prospering and successful.
But if you’ll get our eyes off the circumstances and on God, we’ll discover that…
God loves you with an unfailing, undeserved and unlimited love.
Even though you may have rejected and turned away from Him over and over, He is still pursuing you. And He desires that you pursue Him with that same kind of passion. So over the next few weeks, we’re going to discover a number of practical ways that we can do that in our lives.
But it seems to me that the best way to respond to what we’ve learned this morning is to take some time to reflect some more on the pursing love of God and His grace towards us through song. So after I pray the worship team is going to come up and we’re going to take some time to sing some songs that will help us to remember God’s unfailing, undeserved and unlimited love for us.
