The People God Remembers

Family, I just wanna brag and thank the Lord.  I often say to people, like man I have the best job in the world.  I get to hang out with people, I get to ya know, sit and preach God’s Word and be with a wonderful family of people and so I just wanted to just acknowledge God’s kindness in that, and even as I look at this passage, I’m just extremely excited about what God is doing and just what His Word has to say.  So, with that said, could you just bow your heads with me as we pray.

Lord, we do ask that your Word would go forth.  We pray as we go through our day, we are so thankful that we are a part of a body where we can receive your holy Word in the morning and in the evening and bookcase it and encourage us for the week ahead so we thank you for that Jesus and we ask that you would be exalted, that you would allow people to not be distracted, that you would allow us not to be weary and tired, and that you would awaken our hearts and just understand how beautiful it is to be under your Word.  And we pray that’s where we will be Lord that we will sit under the authority of your text, Holy Spirit bring glory to Christ through me, would you use me to preach, to make clear this wonderful passage that is such an important passage for all of us as we live the life of faith and be exalted in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

So we are finishing up Malachi, which is a wonderful book in the scriptures, and just to give you a little update, Malachi is the last prophetic voice of the Old Testament, and I know we rehash things here and there with each pastor, but it’s very important for you to understand the context in which we’re in.  The name Malachi means messenger.  So as a reminder this book comes after the temple has been rebuilt in 516 B.C., and so after you have this initial furfur restoration is super excited about what God has done.  It seemed in this book that that furfur had cooled down.  What seems to have happened is that the people begin to settle in and you begin to see kind of the spiritual apathy as you see the spiritual complacency and so we’ve seen that throughout these weeks where we’ve heard these people model themselves to be ungodly and evil doers, defensive, making claims against God.  And so, we have right here Malachi is prophesying against these people.  This is around Neamiah’s final reform and after Neamiah he had returned to Persia and the people began to backslide actually once again.  So that’s where we are, this is as it were family, this is a hinge book, it’s a tension book.  You have all these disputes that we’ve seen throughout the weeks and the reason why this is a tension book is because it’s the last book and after this prophecy there is no more conversation from God for 400 years.  So, God indeed before that silence does speak.  We’ve seen in the past that He’s been confronting this callous people, naming their sins, and man, answering their accusations, warning of judgement.  And then we get here to this text.  We’re here in this text, we’re after he’s even talked to these guys and said, “You know what, you’re not tithing, and they get defensive again, and then, well what do you mean, how are we robbing you?  A good word from pastor Nathan last week.  So that’s the backdrop, that’s who we are, we’re with a covenant community that for whatever reason has lost a furfur and is blaming God for it. 

So now we get to verse 16, chapter 3.  If you would turn there and we have this very different interjection here.  I love this.  Be encouraged saints, look at what God says in his Word.  So, the pictures of this individuals shouting these outlandish claims and then verse 16 it says, “In those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.  The Lord paid attention and heard them and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed His name.”  So this is Malachi letting us in, basically well what’s going on, and so he says, think about it now.  You’ve got this covenant community that’s brought forth these accusations, they’re questioning God, they’re questioning God’s love, they’re questioning God’s justice, even defensive.  Well he tries to bring them back by answering the accusations and pointing out their sin and their evil, and in the middle of all that grumbling it’s almost like ahhha and then God just tunes them out, and the pastor just tunes them out, He tunes out the shouting complaints and He focuses in on this quiet reverent conversation.  You see that in verse 16?  Imagine, you see, the chapters we’ve seen these people just basically just, just dog God, just accuse Him and all the sudden He’s almost like, like a mom and dad in a grocery store and there’s all kind of carts everywhere and people walking around and you told your kid to go get something from anther aisle and they haven’t come back for a bit, and all of the sudden you know there’s people and there’s carts and all this stuff, but then you hear, mommy, daddy, and it’s like, where is she, where is he?  He ignores the noise, and He wants to hear what really matters.  So, what we get to see here is that as you’re looking at these chapters and you continue to see the covenant community accusing God, God wants to remind you and me that there’s still a remnant, there’s still a few people who are saying, we’ll stand with God.  The remnant being those who love God and this of a group of individuals who don’t. 

Now in verse 16 this Word He uses here, Shama implies that it is more than just sounds, he doesn’t just hear the sound, it means that God actually inclined himself, he stooped down, he took it personally, he says you have my full attention.  And what I was thinking, I don’t know about you guys, but look at the text here in verse 16 when he says, “In those who feared the Lord spoke, I thought, man what, what did they say?  Like what were they saying?  The text doesn’t tell us what they said exactly, but what we do learn from the text is we learn that whatever they said made it clear that they feared the Lord, right, and that they spoke well of Him, not ill against Him, which was different than what the other people did, these covenant community members did, and that they esteemed His name in verse 16. 

Now what I love about this text here is very simply, hey, you know what, God keeps receipts.  You see that.  It’s that God wants you and I to know that even the faithfulness of the few that God is willing to say I hear you.  In fact, in ancient near eastern culture kings kept royal scrolls to record their acts of loyalty of individuals, right, and so that’s kind of the picture that He gives us here.  They do this to wanna honor those people later and so God says here what he does it he drowns out the noise and he hears this particular people, and it says He provides a book of remembrance.  He keeps intentional records, intentional receipts to celebrate and help us understand that he never forgets faithfulness.  Now you need to ask yourself something, why, why is He doing this.  I want you to store that in your heart, ask yourself why is this important in this text here, why does He give us this biblical echo almost like Esther 6 when Mordecai, they kept a record of Mordecai, and they rewarded him when the king did that.  Well remember, as I ask, why remember, it’s the last book now.  This is the last recorded Word of God.  No more prophets, so here’s God, all the noise, He drowns it out, He listens to this remnant and then He says, let me say something to you, let me remind you of some things.  Look what He says.  He does two things; he focuses first in on our identity.  Okay. 

Verse 17.  So, he takes that little group who is screaming God’s name, he says, “They shall be mine says the Lord of hosts.  In the day when I make up my treasured possession and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.”  Treasured possession, you hear that fam, treasured possession is that’s covenantal language.  It gives a picture to you and me of how God thinks of you and me.  It’s fatherly language, it’s grace language, it’s the language of I see your trembling faith people of God, and I call you, my child.  He uses the same Word, this treasured possession segulah in Exodus 19:5 God’s speaking of Israel as His personal private treasure.  Now why, again, why does He wanna continue to make it so clear throughout the scriptures that we are His kids.  The Bible spends a lot of time trying to help you and me understand that we are not His employees, we are not some ergonomic means for Him to accomplish some weird purpose, but He wants you and me to understand that we are His kids.  Why do you think that’s the case?  Think about it.  Think about the God that you serve and who He is.  Think about the traits of God.  He’s loving, right, God himself is loving. 

When you think of Romans 5:8, He’s kind.  He treats his children; He treats you with tenderness and grace.  Titus 3, 4, and 5.  This God is patient, He is slow to anger.  A 2 Peter chapter 3:9, He is faithful, He keeps His promises.  Lamentations 3:22, He is compassionate, He feels deeply for His children, He moves them toward mercy.  We see that in psalm 103.  Our God is forgiving, He removes our sin, right, allows us to joy freely, life in Christ.  Psalm 103, this God is present.  He never abandons his own, He’s gentle, He handles fragile hearts of children with care and calm and strength.  This God is just.  He does what’s right.  Isaiah 42 verse 3, He is gracious, He gives more than we could ever deserve.  2 Corinthians 12:9, this God is protective, He defends and delivers His people.  He is wise, He knows what’s best, He’s generous, He gives freely, He is truthful, He never lies.  He’s zealous, He’s fiercely devoted to His children and the internal good.  He’s peaceful, He’s quiet and He quiets our fears with His presence, and He’s righteous.  He always does what’s right.  So, think about that.  That’s the God whom we serve.  He wants them to know that that God that we just described all throughout scripture, that’s your daddy, you’re His kid.  And what that does for me, what that should do for you and me is that we don’t freak out in dark days when we realize that we are the children of that God.  So that’s why He begins in Stars with saying let me focus you on your identity, you belong to me.  You’re my treasured possession.  I will spare you just like He says, a man spares his son who serves him.  You’re faithful to me, I’ll be faithful to you.  Well, who am I, I just gave you a few character traits of who God is.  So, He has them focus on their identity.  So, think about it.  You’ve got all the screaming, He drowns it out, He sees the faithful few, He focuses in on them and then he says, first I want you to know who you are and then he focuses on two destinies. 

Now before we talk about the two destinies fam, let me make two observations from the text.  As you look at verse 18 the scriptures read, “Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.”  Now think about that.  He calls the righteous and the wicked and then He says and gives these words of the wicked, He calls them evil doers in verse 1 of chapter 4.  He calls them arrogant in chapter 4:1.  You know what’s interesting, the first observation about this text is that wait a minute, you’re telling me you can do church, but not be part of the real church cuz He’s not talking to just run of the mill pagans fam, He’s talking to covenant community members, He’s talking to those in the covenant community who actually got a problem when He talks about tithing, has a problem when He talks about serving, has a problem when He talks about worship.  So, you mean you can go through the motions, and He called this the ecclesiology is called the doctrine of the visible invisible church is what we’re seeing here.  As you’re seeing it played out very practically here, is we have God saying to this group that they have two destinies and that there’s one destiny for those who are evil doers, who are apathetic, who distain God, and there’s another destiny.  The visible church to help you understand that doctrine is those who are the true church of God family, they’re united by Christ by faith, they’re known only to our great God, and they can’t fail and is universal and is eternal.  And the visible church is the institution of church.  That’s what you see before you right now, that’s what you see with your human eyes.  We profess faith and we participate in the sacraments, but God wants to make it clear that you can be doing church your whole life and not be part of the true church if you’re not experiencing union with Christ.

The second inference that I think is important is that this text shows that their general circumstances, and this is important, the general circumstances of these people are not different.  I think it’s important because the people in the text can’t say, well if you only knew my story, and then validate their disdain for God.  Right.  If you only knew what I was going through you’d understand why I hate God or why I don’t like God or why I’m saying these things about God, because we know that you have those who are speaking ill of God, and you have those who esteem God all in the same conversation.  So that let’s us know that there is something about the people who chose in the midst of living out humanity like we all do to not deny God, but to enjoy an esteemed God.  That’s just important as we look at the rest of the text and continue to answer those questions that I asked in the beginning again.  Why is he doing this?  Why is the prophet being used by God to talk about who these people are and then he encourages them, here’s your identity, here’s the two destinies, verse 18.  Verse 18 implies that God’s justice one day, once blurred by delayed judgement.  I use the word blurred because He uses this great word, you shall see the distinction.  See that’s the concept.  It’s not blurred in the sense that God blurs it, but it might be blurred to us because judgement is long waiting, but it is coming and so we can, we can kind of mix up like having to wait for justice as if there is no justice.  So God says, one day that blurred sense, that timeline which made you wonder and perceive if this is gonna happen, there will be none of that because I’m not just going to discuss about the wicked, but what I’m going to do is I’m going to obliterate them.  It implies that God’s promises a day when all the masks will fall family, and it will no longer be cool to mock God, it will no longer be cool or profitable to reject Him, it will no longer be cool to ridicule and make fun of and to treat those who know God with disdain and evil.  And so He makes it clear, He says, “Then once more you shall see this distinction.” 

Chapter 4 He says, “For behold the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant, all the evil doers will be stubble.  The day that is coming shall set them ablaze says the Lord of hosts so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”  Total judgement God is talking about here.  So, imagine, so He’s talking to the covenant community that’s honoring Him and esteeming Him and I’m sure obviously those who are evil can listen too and realize what the final judgement will be.  But the arrogant think they’re untouchable now, is His point and He’s trying to remind these people that one day all the people who ran those laps around you, all your degrees and platforms and your podcasts and all the created images, all the time you spend trying to make yourself a certain kind of person with social media, all the things we do to try and connive and work your plan to get your kingdom, your kingdom on His earth.  He says built in rebellion, He said all of this burned and he says like dry stubble, like (snap) just that quick.  That all will turn to fire one day.  So he’s talking about these two destinies so again they’ve go these people that are listening, okay, why is He doing this. 

Verse 2.  But for you.  He’s explained that destiny, now let me tell you about you.  “But for you fear my name.  The sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”  Sun of righteousness that’s the worship missed, is a metaphor is restorative presence is what God is talking about here.  Now sun of righteousness you can obviously think about our King Jesus and rightfully so.  God refers to planets and stars all throughout scriptures.  Psalm 84 He does it.  He does it in Isaiah 60, but here Jesus is the son of a father and he’s the sun shining brightly for all His glory and so right now He’s giving you the sense that, when he talks about the wings, comforted with wings, that has the sense of the rays of the sun shining on a person.  So the picture is of an individual like in darkness and finally they’re able to experience the beauty of the light and the rays of the light and it brings healing to them.  And He continues to go on.  So you talk about this, He’s saying, you my people, you will, I know it’s been dark, it’s almost like that sense of He’s saying, did you have the sun that is shining brightly, that there was a long night and all of the sudden one day there will be a sun that shines brightly on you and me and He goes on and He says, you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall which continues to encourage that word picture that He wants these individuals to see and that is you have this, and I’m a city boy I don’t know much about calves, but I can picture and I Googled it, and that is, you know you have calves and they’re born and they’re in the stall and it’s the picture of again a dark stall and they’re confined and the picture is all of the sudden because of what He’s gonna do, we’re gonna be like the calf that you open up the stall and it just bounces out and it’s like this clumsy funny like bouncing out, just running around crazy experiencing the sun, experiencing the freedom, but also even more notice what’s happening, He says that you will, in verse 3, “You will tread down the wicked”, and so the picture is of this calf bouncing up out of the stall, the sun is beaming right on them, they’re experiencing the healing balm of the sun and in addition they’re running around, they’re free, but while they’re free they’re sitting around and they’re clocking their enemies in the head with their hooves.  And so it’s this word picture of God saying I’ve got you and one day you actually will be in control.  He says, “And you shall tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the souls of your feet on the day when I act says the Lord of hosts.” 

This shows family, He is saying to these individuals, there’s gonna be a reversal of injustice.  What once seemed dominant, that’s those who feel like they have the power, who abuse power, what’s dominant is individuals that love this world order, injustice, greed.  What you see in a world where it is truly a doggy eat dog world He says, one day that will all be changed and it will lie beneath the feet of those who are righteous.  And this is not about cruelty, this is about vindication.  This is about God once day saying to all those who’ve served the Lord, He says that one day He’s gonna prop you up and say, everybody actually they were right, and you were wrong.  That’s His point.  His point is that the wicked will regret and if you fear the Lord you will leap.  If you honor Him when it’s costly, He will honor you on a day when it counts is His point.

Now, forgive me.  I went through a lot of imagery there, okay.  I hope you stay with me.  The reason why I went through a lot of imagery is because the text takes us through a lot of imagery.  Now the question I kept continually asking you is why is the text doing that, why is it taking us through so much imagery, why is it continually telling these individuals that small remnant, hey listen, I’ve seen what you’ve done, I pause and I hear you, I don’t hear anybody else, I’m writing it down and let me remind you and tell you about yourself, who you are, and let me tell you what’s gonna happen with you, and what’s gonna happen with them.  Why does He do this?  You know why, because He knows that there will be someone in this room who is a young person that’s being bullied in school.  He knows that there will be someone in this room who has whispered the quiet whispers to God of faithfulness and yet has been molested.  He knows that there’s someone in this room who said I wanna honor God with my life and then they see their life hasn’t worked out like they thought it would.  Financial struggles, and the person sits around and goes, “Is it worth it?  I thought you wanted me to start that business.  I wanna honor you God.  Wait, I thought you wanted me to marry her, I thought you wanted me to marry him, but the marriage fell apart, why?  I tried to point my kids to you and read the Word and two of them don’t even love Christ.  We try to go on mission trips and, and serve the poor, but then I look around and the people, other individuals they’re just taking vacations and they have all the things that I intentionally decided, okay I don’t wanna do those things cuz I wanna be able to honor God in this way, but man, it looks like is it worth it?  I thought that friendship was for me, but the person just totally said, you know what, I don’t wanna be a part of this relationship anymore.” 

He knows that life is hard and that those women of individuals who are saying we love you God, we identify with you God, we are with you God, He understands that those individuals who are disdain and who are evil doers and who are reckless and who are saying things that dishonor God, they, I guarantee you the evil ones spent time slowly chipping with disappointments in life for a lot of us, and all of the sudden next thing you know you begin to hide behind doctrine because you’re disappointed with how things turned out.  So what he’s doing, he’s trying to get ahead of it and he’s saying, you’re not going to hear from me for about 400 years, and you’re gonna wanna be faithful and your kids are gonna wanna be faithful, but this is hard and so right now it’s okay, but when you get pregnant and sadly your baby dies, I need you to still realize that I’m that gentle, tender, generous, peaceful, just, kind God and you’re still my kid and I still love you.  And when the world tells you to coalesce to it, to be like it in order to get ahead, when the world tells you it’s okay to have a little Jesus and a lot of world I want you to remember.  See this is a beautiful text because He’s trying to encourage you and me that I understand.  That’s what’s beautiful about this text family, we have a God, a God who is not just over all creation, but He is intimately involved in our life and He is saying, guess what, I get it.  And if you haven’t experienced that right now, I guarantee you if you serve the Lord you will, you will experience disappointment, you will experience a time where you go, man my theology I thought it was all good and then this happened and I’m struggling right now because I thought I was honoring the Lord and all of the sudden I’m watching people who don’t even love God experiencing the very things I’ve been praying for.  And God says, what are you gonna do when that happens family?  What will you do when that happens?  So God is so good He knows that we get weary fam and He doesn’t want those things holding us to the point where we become cynical so he wants to remind them, this is who you are, this is what’s gonna happen, you’re gonna be a crazy calf bouncing around, those people that you think are getting ahead, I got this.  So He gives as it were prophetic postcards to say, I got you, I know what’s going on.  That’s what He’s trying to do family.  And what He does, so he gives us the two destinies.  He helps them understand who they are and then what he does, he ends with remember and watch.

Look what He says in verse 4.  He says, “Remember the law of my servant Moses.  The statutes and rules that I command to him at Horeb for all Israel.”  You see how cool this text is, that He starts off by encouraging them, letting them know I hear you, and helping them understand who they are and then he says, here’s what you’ve gotta do now, cuz you’re not gonna hear from me so you need to remember, and again there’s a wink-wink right, He’s talking to those individuals, but guarantee those who are back sliders and those who are evil and those, they can hear too and He’s saying, guess what, here’s an opportunity for you to get right.  He says, “Remember the law of my servant Moses.  The statues and rules that I command to him at Horeb for all Israel.” 

Verse 5, “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”  In verse 4 that whole recall, He’s saying basically Zacor is the word.  Verse 4 He is saying “Live in light of what you remember.”  This is like relational remembering family, this is relational remember for those who are His people in invisible church and basically as it were like a gut punch to people who’ve made up their own rules and who always are walking around, going to different churches looking for new revelation.  He said, no, no, no, you don’t need no new revelation, what you need is to obey old revelation.  Go to what God has done in His Word.  And then he ends verse 6, in addition to verse 5 he says, “And He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers lest I come and strike the lamb with a decree of utter destruction.”  Look at this, to understand verse 4 through 6 we have to understand this last part of the text where he says, “Lest I come and strike the lamb with a decree of utter destruction.”  See, here’s what God is saying, God is saying I’m coming again to destroy all unrighteousness, but everyone is unrighteous right so only one can save us and that is a righteous God, right cuz we can’t save ourselves.  So, what we have in these verses is God showing His goodness again by giving us the plan, this is so good, He gives us the plan hundreds of years before it happens so they can live in light of it.  This is, see the Lord always before He brings destruction, He always brings a chance for you to respond in faith and repentance.  And that’s what’s happening right now.  If you’re in this room right now and that’s you, you kinda play in church, you know it, everybody knows it, or no one knows it but God knows it, and He’s saying I want you to understand, here’s an opportunity.  So what He does is He says, He says I have this plan and God’s plan is to send two people, a prophet and a savior.  So John the Baptist fulfills this role as a forerunner of Christ, we see that in Matthew 11 and behold again we see the goodness of God here, God always sends a voice.  That’s saying I won’t let you, He won’t just let judgement just hit you, He’s so gracious before He calls your name first.  So what He does is that He sends this prophet and he sends Jesus Christ our king to save mankind from his own imminent destruction.

Now think about that. God destroys and God saves.  I mean that is absolutely amazing.  And that’s where the cross, family in this text here, is where the cross and the curse collides, right, with compassion.  See God, what He does here, He says I can bring about a curse, but what he does is He doesn’t water down His justice, He actually satisfies it in Christ as we know through His own son.  And so what the text is doing in verses 4 through 5 as He gives all that encouragement, as He helps you understand who you are, as He helps you understand who He is, as He helps you understand what’s gonna happen to those who know Him and those who don’t know Him, what He does, He then says, guess what, I want you to have an opportunity to understand how I provided a plan of salvation and I want you to come home and repent.  That’s the point of the text there, that you don’t have to fear judgement because we know that Christ has come, but to come boldly for the throne of grace, to come home, to repent, to return, to be faithful, just like those faithful few in the beginning, He’s saying you have an opportunity to be like that, to be those who say we will remember the law, we will listen to God’s voice, we will bow down to the king.  This is a God who remembers, that’s what we see in this text family, this is a God who hears, this is a God who writes our name in His book by His grace, He says, you are mine.  This is the God who allows the curse to fall because He gets paid the price himself.  So the fire has already come and all that’s left is basically how will you and I respond, will we turn, will we trust, will we come home?  Let me just encourage anyone in this place right now, if you are struggling like that and you feel like, man I feel like life has been giving me these blows and I wanna propose to you this is God screaming out to you and saying He loves you, He wants you to continue to fight the fight of faith.  Satan’s a liar and this text is for all of us to understand that one day what seems blurry will be so clear because we will be with Him and we’ll be reigning with Him.  Let’s pray.

Lord, by your kindness may you allow your Word as Malachi made it clear that who you are and how you love and view your people should be something that sits on our hearts and is a reminder of us day in and day out.  Would you give us the grace to do so, would you protect and minister to saints in this room right now who are really struggling, would you encourage the saints right now who are trusting you and your Word and living a life of faith while we pray that you will be exalted, that you will use this church for your glory in Jesus’ name.  Amen.