A Testimony of Love
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
Introduction:
The world doesn’t revolve around you. This is a phrase that we’ve heard time and time again in our lives. And we agree with it. It’s a duh statement. We know the obvious answer is “of course it doesn’t revolve around me, I’m not that selfish, am I?” If you’re like me, sometimes that phrase stings a little bit. When someone says "the world doesn’t revolve you” to me, I might tense up, start to get a little bit defensive, and backtrack. “Well I wasn’t trying to say that!” Or “You must be misunderstanding me!” or “I was just kidding around!” The truth is, even though it’s a duh statement, we tend to think the world does revolve around us. We subconsciously think, man the world would be a better place if I could just change everything! If only people, professors, politicians, or preachers would listen to me, then everything would be better! Of course we would never say these things out loud, but our complaining gives us away. And in that attitude, we forget God, we make things about us, we decide that we know best, and we assume that we have control.
We assume the world revolves around us when we’re alone in our room at night, and we decide just to pull out our phone and look at pornography for a few minutes, because, what harm can it do? Or when in our friendships we may gossip about other people under the guise of “We just want the best for them.” In our classes, we might lie on a confessional statement and say “If only the professor knew how busy I am.” In all these ways, we say “The world revolves around me.”
How does God help us reject this attitude, how we can keep from falling into self - idolatry? God’s response to Israel in our passage today shows us how.
In the days of Malachi, Israel had that same “world revolving around me” attitude. They just had returned from the exile and rebuilt the temple. And during that time they had a huge spiritual revival. But over some years, they started to decline. They were still under the control of the Persians and began to think the world revolved around them. They thought, “if God loves us, why are we going through such hardship trying to rebuild this city? “If God does not care, why should we?” And they began to fall into spiritual apathy and stopped caring about obeying God almost altogether. And when they did obey the law, they did it incorrectly without a care in the world. But God would not allow this to happen, and so let’s hear his testimony.
Go ahead and open up to Malachi Chapter 1, starting at verse 2.
And here, the first thing that God does is:
I. God testifies to his love by declaration. (v.2a)
I. God testifies to his love by declaration. (v.2a)
Before anything else, God declares to us that he loves us. And he declares to us that he always has loved us.
But Israel does not respond well to this declaration. And so we read at verse 2.
Malachi 1:2 (CSB)
“I have loved you,” says the Lord.
Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?”
A. I want us to notice how primary God’s love is. When his beloved people are in such disarray and disobedience, he doesn’t begin with rebuke, he begins with a declaration: I. have. loved. you. The words “have loved” shows us that God’s love for us started in the past, and continues in the present. This shows us how much greater God’s patience is than ours. When someone wrongs us, all we want to do is point out their faults, but when we wrong God again and again, he starts with fatherly love.
B. God’s love for us is truly unconditional too, it’s not just an emotional high, not just a feeling , it’s a covenant love that forever withstands betrayal, idolatry, and questioning. And in the same way, before we were ever born, God has loved us. That’s what the cross was. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In the midst of our rebellion, God said “I have loved you,” and went to hang on a tree for our sins.
C. And how have God’s people responded? Israel questions and says, “How have you loved us?” Think, about this: The very people who have been delivered from the exile and placed back into their land with a brand new temple say: “How have you loved us?!” Imagine a couple who has been married over 50 years, and the husband says to his wife: Honey, “I have loved you”, and she responds, “How have you loved me?” What a punch to the gut! So how does God respond to this great insult?
II. God testifies to his love by contrast. (v.2b-4)
II. God testifies to his love by contrast. (v.2b-4)
a. God shows Israel what they could have been if not for his love. He makes a picture for his people, making known their blessing in the midst of destruction.
b. So when we continue reading, we will see how God responds by contrasting his love for Jacob with his hate for Esau, and how God’s treatment of each has continued to Israel and Edom.
Malachi 1:2–4 (CSB)
“Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
Though Edom says, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever.
A. The Lord sets up his response with a question of his own: “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” He says this to let us know that Jacob and Esau were on a level playing field. Not only were they brothers, but they were twins, and Esau was actually the firstborn over Jacob. So God obviously chose Esau right? Nope. Before they were even born, God set his love on Jacob, and said “The older will serve the younger,” even though neither of them had done anything good or bad.
B. And God loved Jacob for no other reason except that he delighted to do so. God has no obligation to love, no-one makes him love, he loves as he chooses, he loves sovereignly. Jacob deserved none of it. If we look at the sins of Jacob’s life, he was no better than Esau, and at times he was much worse and yet, God made his covenant with him and his people Israel. When Israel falls into sin, God doesn’t destroy them, he disciplines them. That’s what the judges were, that’s what the exile was, it was God as a father, disciplining his son Israel so that they might rebuild and follow him.
C. In the same way that God’s covenant love for Jacob extended to the people of Israel, God’s hatred for Esau spread to his people, Edom. If God’s love for Isreal means discipline when they fall into sin, then God’s hatred for Edom means lasting judgment when they fall into sin. Edom allied with Babylon to cut off escape routes while they destroyed Judah. Then after all of Israel was exiled, Edom moved into their empty homes. But God judged them, and decimated their people and their home in return. And so when Israel got to rebuild, Edom stays cursed forever. And God points this contrast out to Israel to say, look how much I’ve loved you!
D. God has put his covenant love on us in the same way, but when we start to think the world revolves around us, we think we deserve his love. God doesn’t love you for who you are, or what you’ve done, he loves you because he delights to love you, for his glory, and you wouldn’t want it any other way. Because if we got what was fair, then we’d be destroyed just like Edom. But because of God has loved us, God disciplines us when we sin so that we will grow more like Jesus. And he contrasts this with the cross. When we see the judgement we deserved getting poured on Jesus, we can’t help but understand how he has loved us.
g. So what does God want us to do with this great love? How do we act? He wants us to praise
III. God testifies to his love by our praise. (v.5)
III. God testifies to his love by our praise. (v.5)
a. After hearing God’s declaration, and seeing the contrast between God’s love and rejection, he wants us to praise his love. He desires that we see his powerful love and his powerful judgment and proclaim his glory.
b. In our final verse, God shows us the result of his great love in our lives, how when we see his great love in the midst of great wrath, we praise him.
Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.’
And here’s the reason. God says to us, his covenant people, “there is a day coming, where you, my beloved children, will see you enemy decimated like Edom, you and you will rejoice. Though you deserve none of my mercy, I will give it to you as a gift, and then you will know, I have loved you.” And he has, God has loved us, his covenant people, despite us. That’s the point of this entire passage. God has loved us, despite us.
Despite us, God clothed us in the garden.
Despite us, God removed us from slavery.
Despite us, God ushered us into the land of promise.
Despite us, God brought us back from exile.
Despite us, God came into the world.
Despite us, God died on a cross for our sins.
Despite us, God rose again.
Despite us, God sent his spirit.
Despite us, he will return with fire in his eyes and destroy all of our enemies one final time.
And so when you get ready to pull out your phone, and relapse into porn addiction, remember first that God has loved you, despite you, that he has always loved you, and that he has killed the enemy of pornography on the cross, so you no longer have to live under it’s rule.
And when you start to gossip about someone you find annoying under the guise of “We want the best for them,” you remember first that God has loved you despite you, and that because you have recieved forgiveness time after time, you love that person despite them, and forgive them time after time.
And when you are tempted to lie on a confessional statement because you are so exhausted, you remember first that God has loved you despite you, and that no matter if the assignment isn’t done, his love for you never depended on you, and you can have peace in that.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Because, when we remember that the world doesn’t revolve around us, and see God’s testimony of Love, We will say, “The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.”