The State of the Church 2024
State of the Church 2024 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Why?
Why?
A question that is necessary to determine the cause and continuation of an activity, direction, or pursuit.
Y’all…we gather as First Baptist Church for a purpose:
Our Vision:
Love God Faithfully
Love People Sacrificially
Make Disciples Fervently
Those words have meaning…for us as body we believe this is what God has called us to do and be.
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
38 This is the great and first commandment.
Love God Faithfully
Love God Faithfully
39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Love People Sacrificially
Love People Sacrificially
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Make Disciples Fervently
Make Disciples Fervently
I am bringing these up today as a reminder of what we voted upon just a year ago.
We voted in response to the fact that we felt this is God purpose/vision for us.
So our “Why?!”=God’s Purpose
So our “Why?!”=God’s Purpose
We are to do these things because He purposed them.
Today we look at the beginning of Malachi.
Malachi is coming before the priesthood of Israel with a “Why!”
In essence, God has spoken and Malachi has a burden to deliver.
Let’s read our passage:
1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
2 “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
3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”
4 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.’ ”
5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”
Malachi’s Why?
Malachi’s Why?
1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
מַשָּׂא = Burden
We translate the word “massa” as oracle, but the literal translation is burden.
Malachi has a burden…one might even say a burning to communicate the Word THE LORD has laid upon him.
Specifically:
Malachi deals with:
Broken Priesthood
Broken Marriage
Broken Priorities
God has given Malachi a difficult task along with others like Nehemiah.
Malachi is suspected to be written somewhere around 430-400 B.C.
Most likely written just around Ezra-Nehemiah so he is dealing with the same issues as these men of God.
The Father Loves His Children
The Father Loves His Children
Malachi 1:2 (ESV)
2 “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
God gives a reminder through Malachi.
“I have loved you...”
This morning you should know God loves His children.
What a magnificent way to begin by saying it out loud to His people.
In case you can’t see it
In case you don’t see it
In case you have not been seeing through the moment.
In case the moment has overtaken you.
God exclaims: “I LOVE YOU!”
We have a parallel to this in the N.T.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
So Jesus reminds of and fleshes out this love.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Often when we forget our why…we need to come back to the heart behind the “Why”
We can become calloused in the roughness of the life.
We can become so focused on the scars, the difficulty, the brokenness that we start to question the why, Israel was no different.
Let’s read again:
2 “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
3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”
Look at perceived question: “How have you loved us?
Does this not sound a bit audacious? Yet, we don’t like something and the same question can rise in our calloused hearts.
We might say, I don’t feel loved or I don’t see the love in the immediate time.
But God… He is still faithful for He has “loved you”
We go pretty far into the O.T. before we see God saying I love you to His child.
We might look to the book of Deuteronomy 10:15
15 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.
Think about the context of this passage…Israel has been out in the dessert wandering for 40 years. Yet Moses gave this word to the people of God.
Likewise Malachi says in not so many words…you might look around and not see it, but it’s true God Loves You.
He proved it in the Grace of verses 2 & 3
Malachi 1:2–3 (ESV)
2 “...Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob
3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”
As much as people are frustrated by these words and try to explain them away… Here God gives us a picture in words.
People become angry that the text says “Esau I have hated” but the bigger question rests in “Yet I have loved Jacob.
Esau, like all men was a sinner.
But Jacob, by all accounts was a swindler.
His name means deceiver/heal grabber. In essence, one who seeks to get that which is not meant for him.
And this one, like us who belong to Christ, is the one God says I Love You to.
Let’s get back to how this connects us to our why? He has loved us, called us, drew us, wooed us, gifted us, justified us, sanctified us and continues to do so.
Our why?
Our cause and continuation rests in a love that was given to the least, the broken, the tainted and scarred vessel.
Look at it this way: We have to hate to love.
If God loves the good He has to hate the evil.
God Hates Evil
God Hates Evil
Malachi 1:3–5 (ESV)
3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”
4 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.’ ”
5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”
Our why leads us to move away from the evil and towards the good.
What is the good, but God.
If God is the good we must pursue Him in the burden and the burning.
In essence, we as the church should have a burden if not a burning to pursue what God has called us to with all that we are.
Walking Away, But In...
Walking Away, But In...
Recall the “Why?”
Purse the “Why?”
Trust the “Why?”