INTRODUCTION
When God is doing nothing he is always doing something - loving his people. It’s true isn’t it, that at times God seems to be doing nothing in our personal lives or in the world around us. But the truth is, he is always doing something, he is always loving his people.
Sometimes our journey with God is like that of the Jews in Israel at the time when Malachi was writing. Sometimes our faith seems to get all serious, with little excitement and a whole lot of boredom or unwanted stress. At times we feel that God’s blessing has all dried up, that the joy of knowing God has in fact become a drag. In Malachi the Lord has a message of hope for us as we endure these times of spiritual drought - If you want to kick-start your faith, remember that I love you.
I. REMEMBER WHICH GOD LOVES YOU (v2a)
This passage begins with the tender yet authoritative message from God himself, “An oracle: The word of the LORD to Israel through my messenger [Malachi]. I have loved you.” There is nothing original about this statement from God. You know it, I know it, and God’s chosen people, the Israelites knew it - God loves his chosen people. Yet Israel, at this point in its history, was like many of God’s people today. They had become bored with their faith. Tired of waiting for God to act. So much so that they had begun to question wether or not their God really did love them and they had begun to look for satisfaction elsewhere.
What the Israelites needed then, and what God’s people often need today, is to remember which God loves us.
The problem with the Israelites was that they had a head knowledge of God’s love - but their experience of God’s love had been watered down by so many outside influences that it had become powerless. They knew in their minds that their God loved them. He loved them enough to rescue them from their oppressors in Egypt and lead them to their own land - the promised land. They knew that just 100 years prior to the time that Malachi was written God displayed his love once again by rescuing them from exile in Babylon. But lately God just didn’t seem to be interested in showing his love for them in such dynamic ways. The life of faith in fact had become pretty average - there was no spice in it.
This restless attitude lead the Israelites to look for alternatives. They married outside the faith. They began to put themselves before God by offering him second rate worship and they only took notice of those parts of the bible which sounded good to them and overlooked the parts that made life difficult. What they hadn’t realised was that if they wanted to kick-start their faith then God’s people needed to get him back into the centre of their lives and pronto.
You know, tied up in God’s tender statement, “I have loved you,” is the profound truth that following Him is all about a relationship. If you knew that all you had was a relationship with God, would you be totally and completely satisfied? I guess most of us would want to add something. Of course we’d like to be loved by God, but most of us would like to do something too. We are a “doing” people. In fact we feel worthless or useless unless we have something to do, something to contribute. But the message to God’s people here in Malachi is that to be loved by God is all that we need. To be loved by God is the highest relationship, the highest achievement and the highest position in life.
That doesn’t mean that God’s people will never do anything as an expression of their love for him. God will call on us to obey him and do whatever he asks of us. However, God’s people do not need to be doing something to feel fulfilled. God’s people are fulfilled completely because they are loved by him. If we want to kick-start our faith then we need to remember that when we are filled with him we don’t need anything else. We need to remember which God has loved us.
One songwriter has put it like this,
I’d rather have Jesus than silver or Gold,
Id’ rather be his than have riches untold;
I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands,
I’d rather be lead by his nail pierced hands.
I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause,
I’d rather be faithful to his dear cause,
I’d rather have Jesus than world wide fame,
I’d rather be true to his holy name.
He’s fairer than lilies of rarest bloom,
He’s sweeter than honey out of the comb,
He’s all that my hungering spirit needs,
I’d rather have Jesus and let him lead.
Than to be the king of a vast domain,
Or be held in sin’s dread sway,
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.
So, intellectually we understand that God loves us. We accept that nothing else can offer us the kind of relationship characterised by love, that God holds out to us. And though there is nothing new about the concept of God loving us, isn’t it true that we still often don’t feel loved?
Surely, if God really did love us he would send us a break. If God really did love us he would send us relief from whatever is causing us difficulty or pain. Surely if God really did love us we would experience blessing and success.
The Israelites felt the same way. We don’t know if there was a national outcry to God like the one here, “How have you loved us?” but in this question is summed up the general attitude of the day - that following God didn’t seem to supply the answers to their suffering and despair (Pause). The emphasis in Israelite society at the time was on God’s apparent inability to prevent difficulties. Because of this attitude people had become so callused to God’s eternal mercy that they were blind to the true richness of his blessing.
Well in reply to their cynical question God’s messenger says that if we want to Kick-start our faith and add vitality to our relationship with God, we must remember not only which God has loved us, but also how God has loved us (OHP).
II. REMEMBER HOW GOD LOVES YOU (v2b-3).
When a child doesn’t get his or her own way the common response to the parent is, “You don’t love me.” Of course this isn’t true. The parent’s love hasn’t changed. It’s just that at that moment their love is expressing itself differently than how the child wants it.
God’s love is like that. Sometimes he expresses it in ways that we don’t like. For instance, some experience God’s love in a deeper more meaningful way than others. The fact that God’s special love is selective doesn’t sit right with us. But God’s love has never been thrown around at random. God’s love has always been directed primarily at a particular group of people.
In reply to the Israelites question, “How have you loved us?” God says, “I chose you above the Edomites.” "Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, 3 but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals" (1:2c-3).
Let me explain the background to this statement. Jacob here represents the nation of Israel and Esau the nation of Edom. Esau and Jacob, you may remember, were twin brothers, Esau being the firstborn. As the oldest son then, it would have seemed right for God to have chosen Esau to be the one from whom the Israelite nation would come. Instead the youngest son Jacob was chosen over Esau by God for this high honour.
So what is being said here is that God has loved Israel right from that nations inception and he expressed this by choosing Jacob over Esau and making Jacob’s descendants his special people. God’s love is discretionary, it is directed primarily at his chosen people - this is how God has shown his love for the Israelites and for his special people right throughout history.
Human parents are the same. It’s only natural that we have a special place in our heart for our own children. However, this doesn’t mean that we don’t love all children - some are harder to love than others but in general we love all children but our own are extra special to us.
The point here is that the strength and passion with which God loves his own chosen people is like that of the parent, it’s so deep and so profound that anything else in comparison would seem to be hate.
Since Jesus Christ of course, Christians have become God’s chosen people. God’s love is now directed primarily towards them. Towards those who accept the love of Jesus Christ as displayed on the cross. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ should convince us once and for all that God loves his special people. Jesus Christ was God’s final, total and complete expression of his love for us today. Through him God has set aside a new people. In John 6:44 Jesus himself reminds us that, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Christians are God’s chosen recipients of his special and unique love.
If you are a Christian and you want to kick-start your faith, then remember how God has loved you. Remember that God chose to pay the price of your sin by sacrificing his Son in your place on the cross. He has done this especially for you.
Finally, if we want to kick-start our faith we must also remember why God has loved his chosen people.
III. REMEMBER WHY GOD LOVES YOU (vs 4-5).
There are two reasons that God has loved his chosen people.
a. To bring himself glory.
MAL 1:4 Edom may say, "Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins."
But this is what the LORD Almighty says: "They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the LORD. 5 You will see it with your own eyes and say, `Great is the LORD--even beyond the borders of Israel!’
“Great is the Lord” says Malachi. The first reason God has loved his chosen people is to bring glory to himself. If we want to kick-start our faith then we need to trace all blessings back to their proper source. God’s love for his people is the source of all blessing and we bring him glory when we acknowledge that. God’s love for his chosen people was the source of the blessing that came through Jesus Christ. Romans 5:8 says, 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. If we want to kick-start our faith we need to trace our blessings back to their proper source.
To put this another way we could say that God is on the side of his chosen people. We see here in v4 that God actively works to frustrate the self-centered efforts of the Edomites - those who are not chosen. Because they carry on life with no regard for God at all, they became examples of God’s justice. The suggestion is that though he frustrates those who are not his, God works for the good of those who are his. Romans 8:28 makes this clear. RO 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. By making his chosen people examples of his love and mercy God brings glory to himself.
In 1715, Louis 14th of France died. Louis, who called himself “the Great,” was the monarch who made the infamous statement “I am the State!” His court was the most magnificent in all of Europe, and his funeral was spectacular. His body lay in a gold coffin. To dramatize the deceased King’s greatness, orders had been given for the cathedral to be dimly lighted, with only one special candle set above his coffin. Thousands waited in hushed silence. Then Bishop Massilon began to speak. Slowly reaching down, he snuffed out the candle, saying, only God is great.”
You see, all that we are, all that we have is from God. If we want to kick-start our faith, we need to trace these blessing back to him.
b. To grow his kingdom.
We will also need to put all our blessings to their proper use. You see, God also loves his people in order to grow his kingdom. Verse five tells us that as God’s chosen people see him at work in life they will say, “Great is the LORD--even beyond the borders of Israel!”
Because God blesses his chosen people they must use those blessings to bless him and his kingdom in return. And we do this by telling others of God’s glory. God’s people have been blessed so that they might be a blessing to others. God’s people have been loved to love others. If we want to kick-start our faith then we need to start blessing others through the blessings God has given us. And the primary blessing that we have received and are able to share is Christ’s love.
Paul’s life is an excellent example of this. He tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:14 that “Christ’s love” is what compelled him in his ministry. Paul knew what it meant to be blessed by the love of God through Jesus Christ. The love of Christ so impacted Paul’s life that he was carried away in a flood of gratitude. So much so that his own life and well-being became secondary to God’s purposes in every respect.
The point here is this, we must be like Paul. When we see that God has blessed us, that is a sure sign that God wants us to bless others. If we want to kick-start our faith we need to listen to God’s voice when he blesses us. And we need to start looking for who it is he wants to bless through our God given assets.
CONCLUSION
Even though at times God seems to be doing nothing, he is always loving his people. The Christian journey can soon become monotonous and God can become incidental if we stifle his love for us. So if we want to kick-start our relationship with God, if we want to know the excitement and fullness of being on the cutting edge of Christian life, then 1) we need to remember which God has loved us, by trusting that he is the only the God who can fill us and sustain us; 2) we need to remember how God has loved us - Christians are God chosen people, he loves them more than any others; and 3) we need to remember why God has loved us - we need to trace our blessings back to their proper source and therefore give glory to God and put all our blessings to their proper use so that his kingdom grows. This is how we begin to kick-start our faith.
Concluding song: The Power of Your Love
