Foretold / Prophets of the Bible | Part 10

So I'm excited, but just don't make it too bright. We won't be able to see. So hey. Let me ask you a question. We we go into this last part of the series, Foretold. This is the end of the series. We've been looking at these prophets from the Old Testament. I I just wanna ask you guys, have you ever played a game

where you didn't really understand the rules? And because of that, you got a little frustrated, but also you might have got confused. You ever had a game where you you you could maybe because you didn't understand how it was scored that you thought you're winning, but you're actually losing.

Kinda like when I used to golf and score one twenty. I thought I beat all you guys in the seventies. I killed you guys when I realized, oh, wait. It's low score is better. Yeah. You ever have that? It can be really frustrating and confusing when you don't understand how it works. And a lot of games, it's it's especially one sport I like to play that gets a lot of people confused. Matter of fact, they've made international scoring

rules. They've changed those how they score for international competition because they wanna get it back in the Olympics, and they're afraid that people are frustrated with not understanding how it scored, and that is bowling.

Bowling. Like a lot of you, you go bowling and you know how you keep score, you have those automatic scores. Right? They put them I think they put them in there because bowling math was just too confusing to too many people. It's really hard to add up a bowling score because when you get strike, it's 10 plus the next two shots and all these things. And and and I've just grown up with it. But I bowl with a friend

who will remain nameless because he comes to this church, but I've been bowling with him for, like, eleven years, and bowling math is like dark magic to him. It's like a wizardry

he doesn't get. We've been bowling all these years, and you'll see those scores. It'll have our totals, but it doesn't add up the strikes and all these things. And he'll look up there and go go, oh, man. We're losing this game bad, aren't we? I go, no. We're gonna win. We got it pretty good. We're gonna turn around. And he's like, I don't what? What? I don't get it. Go, it's the way that he's just and then there'll be games where he's like, we've totally got this. Right? I go, no. We probably have no chance of winning this game. He's like, oh, man. Why don't I get this? It's bowling math.

And it's frustrating, and it's really kinda hard if you're bowling against somebody. And then you throw in handicap. So we're in a league now where you actually bowl your guy one on one, and he never knows if he's winning or not. And it's like, that's gotta be difficult,

you know. And and and I realized as we look at this last prophet we're gonna look at today, that's a lot of what the prophets are trying to do. It's trying to declare God's math for life. God's trying to say, here's how you win. This is how it works. This is how I designed life to be. And the problem with the Israelites,

and by extension us, we often don't understand the math of how it works. And many of us think we're winning when you're actually losing. And some of you think you're losing when you're actually winning.

And and so that's what we're gonna look at today is is how does God's math add up in our lives? How does God want life to work? And the big idea for this last talk we're gonna look at today is simply this. God loves me faithfully

so I can trust him fully. And and you've heard, like, you know, that's that's a two part equation. We need to fully trust God with all of our lives, in every way that he calls us to trust him in his word.

But the reality is if I don't get the math right and understand that I think, okay, I just gotta do this. And so we do the equation like this. I have to trust God fully, and then he'll love me faithfully. If you say it backwards, that's not right. The equation is wrong. It's our trust of God should be a byproduct

of understanding how much he loves us. And really, even though the prophets have a lot of tough messages, most of those messages are challenging us because we're either not loving God. We and and we're not listening to him and not obeying him, and we're heading to a path of destruction. We're losing the game.

And God is trying to get us to add the math up correctly. That's really the whole series we've talking about. And today, the this is really what it all comes down to, and we're gonna be in the story of Malachi.

The the the book of Malachi, it's the last book of the Old Testament. It's the last writing prophet. And what's crazy is the end of the story, God doesn't talk again. No no more writing. No more scripture for there's a four hundred years of silence.

It's as if you have this parent that loves his kids really, really, really well, and and he's trying, but they just won't listen, won't listen. Have you ever tried that? You stop arguing with your kids and you just get quiet? In my house, it freaked them out.

Because they figure as long as I'm arguing, they're still in the game. But the second I say, okay. And then I stop talking, they're like, wait. What what's dad doing? Is is he getting the nuclear codes ready? Yeah. What's happening? And that's what God kinda does. He shares what he shares, and then it's silence.

So like I said, we're gonna be in Malachi in just a few things to set it up, because I'm gonna try to give us an overview of the entire book. It's only four chapters, but there's a lot in it.

And how it's set up is Malachi takes place about a hundred years after the Southern Kingdom Of Israel has been taken into captivity. God gave him that time out. You know, he gave him some discipline, and God's discipline is thorough, but his grace is is is never ending.

And and so what the the discipline was not to destroy them, but to discipline them, and discipline was intended to turn them back to the Lord. The problem is it keeps happening over and over and over in the old testament, it still happens to us today, is discipline often just turns our heads but not our hearts.

And we saw that with Jonah last week, and that happens again with them. So they come back, and this is about a hundred years after they've come back, and they've fallen back into the same habits. They they have lukewarm worship of God. They're not all in. They're doing all kinds of issues again, and and then they're kind of blaming God, and it's it's right back to where they all started again.

It's the second verse, same as the first, a little bit longer, a little bit worse again. And so what this how this book is laid out is there's six disputes that happen. Basically, God makes six claims.

And as he says it, they then disagree with him. How have we done that? Who? Us? No. Not us. You know? And I then God gets the final word. So if you're a parent, it was like this morning for you.

Six different arguments where you make a truth claim, they argue with you, you say the final word, and you're not sure if anyone actually agrees with anything. Alright? So that that's where it is. And so as we look through this, there there's these six things, and I just kinda wanna show you how it really comes down to God loves me faithfully so I can trust him fully. That's the big idea for this whole thing. And I think it's the whole idea of what the the Old Testament prophets are trying to say when they bring the word of God. But it all begins with this first this first thing. It says in first chapter one verse two, the first dispute, the first statement that God says is this,

I have always loved you, says the Lord. So the first thing he says is, I have always loved you. But you retort, really? How have you loved us? So the first thing he challenges them with is, I love you, but you don't love me. That's what he's trying to land here.

You know what's funny is you hear all these tough messages out of old you hear God saying, hey, this way not that way. But what does he start this with? I've always loved you.

The the message from God in the Old Testament is not an angry deity who's mad. It's a father who's got a broken heart because his children do not see his love. And because of that, they don't trust him, and they won't love him back. And then when he challenges him, I've always loved you, they don't even believe it.

And this is critical. If you get nothing else out of there, gotta take a moment here to ask you this. When you hear the statement, God has always loved you, just be honest in your heart. What is your first gut level emotional reaction to that? Not the church answer.

The church answer. I know with my head and theologically and ontologically and, you know, all these things. Yeah. God does love me, and I can no.

Do you really believe that?

Does your heart really believe that? Because I'm telling you, everything we're about to see, because he goes through these six disputes, and there's some pretty good throat punches. You're not gonna be surprised by them. They're the same old usual suspects of throat punches.

But they're really to point out the idea that God is saying, I have always loved you, but you're not loving me. And it really comes down to this. Do I really believe that God loves me? That unpacks everything else. The God's math is until I can really embrace and truly believe God loves me.

But some of us, you've been through tough things. You've been through things so you could say, well, I wanna believe it. Some of you, you have to just, I wanna believe it. I believe it with my head. I I think it's it's it's a statement of truth. But for some reason, where I'm at in life and things that have happened to me and the things I'm seeing around me, my heart is just having I just I'm I'm I'm just disconnected from that. Because that, you won't understand anything else that I say and anything else the word of God says, if I can't lock into that.

That even in a tough message like Malachi from a prophet declaring the judgment of God, this is the heart of a father reaching out to his children. And he starts with, you don't get it. I have always loved you. How do you respond? Because that's that's the point of this whole message. We'll keep coming back to that.

So in other words, the first dispute is they doubted God's love. It all started with doubting God's love. Because think about it. If you get into a relationship, start dating someone, and you're not sure they're really into you for you,

you're you're you're not sure if they really care that might be selfish, you don't quite trust their love, how all in are you gonna be with them?

Aren't you going to phone it in a little bit? You might not want to give up because you're like, don't know. Maybe this can go somewhere,

but you know what? It's not like I'm going to just dive in head first and be stupid or anything. So I'll go out on some dates if I have time. But if I'm busy, I'll blow them off, and I'll do that's the whole point. Our struggles with actually trusting God with our lives and obeying him, 100% comes back to,

do I trust that he really loves me? Because if you understand how much he loves you, if you have a person that you know loves you more than life itself, and you absolutely believe that beyond a shadow of a doubt, you have no problem embracing that.

So how do you because they doubted God's love. He gives them some answers. I've chosen you. I've always been here. You can read it.

And then we move on to the the the the next one. So out of doubting God's love comes this. In verse six, it says, the Lord of heaven's army says to the priest, a son honored his father and a servant respects his master. If I'm your father and master, where is the honor and respect I deserve? You have shown contempt for my name. So basically, they they doubted God's love, now they're dishonoring God's name.

They're not showing him the respect for who he is. They're not respecting and honoring him as God. And they say, how? How have we ever shown contempt for your name? And he says, you have shown contempt by offering defiled sacrifices on my altar.

So they doubted God's love, and that led right here to dishonoring God's name. And what he talks about is and he repeats this again. He goes about for the people again. So this idea of what you bring to worship God in your offerings is brought up twice. So it's not me. It's God.

He brings up these defiled sacrifices. So what's happening is the sacrificial system was to set up the way to prepare the way for Jesus. Meaning, hey, you've sinned, you've fallen away from me, so you know what? Sin causes death. There needs to be a sacrifice. The Spilling of blood shows how serious sin is, and it's supposed to be, and this is my way of I show that how I will forgive it. There will be a sacrifice in your place. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice. So basically, when you brought your we're offering basically, we bring an offering today. It's money. Back then, theirs was was animals,

and we don't do the sacrificial offering. We do the tithe and offering, but but they would bring these animals, and here's the problem. When you brought the animal, it needed to be your firstborn and a healthy it could not it couldn't be a blemished animal. It couldn't be sickly, couldn't be broke. It had to represent because what you're bringing to God was that represents the sacrifice. So God says, I want your first and your best.

And part of it was to show the honor of his name that he deserves first and best, but it was also a blessing for us to say, I trust God more than I trust my finances. And part of their struggle was where they're frustrated is they've been back for a hundred years. They rebuilt the temple, and they thought God gave us all these promises. They thought the promise of the Messiah was we're gonna be militarily powerful. We're gonna be financially secure. We're going to be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise. They didn't expect life to be hard.

And so now they're frustrated. So they're struggling financially, so what do they do? They start bringing their leftovers.

They start bringing their last and their worst. So what they were doing was bringing offerings. It was like, you know what? That one's sick. It's probably not gonna make it. I'll give that one to God because I need this one to live on.

If if if because you understand, this is like our money. If their if their flock dies, they don't have food. And so God says, no. No. No. No. No. I told you. Firstborn. First fruits. When we give an offering to God, it should be the first thing we give, not the last thing. Your giving should not be pay all your bills, look at everything else, and give a part of what you have left over. God says he spits that from his mouth. That's not acceptable to him because it doesn't prove the point. And you know what? He's so serious about that. Some of you in this room, your leftovers are probably more than anyone else's firsts,

but it's still a leftover. God says, you don't you dishonor my name, and don't trust me when you do that.

I'm so glad that twenty five hundred years later, we've evolved so much

that we don't do these kind of things. Right? We don't get strapped. We don't go to church and say, wanna have this relationship with God, but I want it to cost me as little as possible. We we none of us do that. Right? You guys are all in. You bring your first to God. Right?

Wrong. And the reason I have to call us out on this is because if you notice who he was ripping on in this point was the priests. They're spiritual leaders, the one they're supposed to teach, the one that was supposed to inspect the offering. Imagine if we did that today.

What if you brought your offering up and I can look at it? Mm-mm. Nah. I know what you do for a living. We don't do it that way anymore. But the priest was supposed to look at it, and if it was a blemished animal, he was supposed to reject it. So you can't bring your worship, but they weren't. They're being chickens.

And so he basically, the harshest words for anyone in the book of Malachi is for the people that do what I do. The spiritual leaders, they're supposed to be showing the people the way. And he goes, they chickened out, and they wouldn't challenge the people to bring their best. You know why?

Because how the offering worked was they would sacrifice the animal, and then after it was sacrificed, it then was for the priest to eat and to feed himself and his family. So they were afraid

that if I challenge the people saying this isn't acceptable to God, you need to bring your first and your best, They'd be like, they're so already disrespecting God by just bringing what's left over anyways. They go, fine. If you're not gonna appreciate what I'm giving you there, then I'm gonna give you nothing.

Which is some of you are thinking that right now. Since I challenged you to bring your first, well then I won't give what I'm given then. You're getting mad.

And that's why the priest didn't want to challenge me. You know why? Because then they didn't eat. I'm so glad pastors don't preach in order to make sure people give so they they won't starve today. Aren't you glad we've wait a minute.

In other words, I need to challenge us with the way we worship God with our resources because it's for us. And if I don't do it, it says I'm cursed. And cursed doesn't mean God, like, gets a, you know, a a doll and starts sticking needles in it or stuff. Cursed there just means removed from his blessing,

which means if I don't do it God's way, he can't do anything with it. Therefore, I am all on my own.

So a lot of you are all on your own financially, and that's why you're stressed all the time even if you make a good amount of money. Even if you give, you're still on your own if it's if it's second best, if it's last and leftovers. God asked us to give of our time and our money and to him first,

because it is a blessing in that. We'll see later on. The blessing is what it does for us, but that's when he gets to it later. For me, it was I gotta give the throw punch. So guys, if I don't, I don't love you. And this is difficult for me. God has a sense of humor.

He created me with a gift and raised me with a father that I am pretty good at cutting through the and just speaking the truth. It's called a prophetic gift. I can declare the truth, and I'm I'm I have an ability to see that and say it. And some of you say, yeah, you you say it pretty boldly.

He also wired me to be incredibly incredibly worried about what people think about me. I like to be liked big time, and I hate that about my I am always stressed out. A sermon like this, I will go home and be stressed out.

Because I'm afraid that some of you will get mad at me and not listen to the words of God. But I'm willing to say what might make you mad at me, I'm willing to fight with you. Because I'm actually fighting for you. I love you enough to challenge you to get this right.

Bring your first, and I don't know why I felt led all weekend to say this, but men, I'm talking to you even more than anything else because we're the ones that get cowardly. Yours should be the priest of your home, and you have a million excuses to just not trust God. And the math will never add up if you just don't fully

trust God. But like I said, the answer is not, okay, I'm afraid I don't want to be cursed. The answer is to go back, why wouldn't you fully trust God when he has always loved you? That's the point. If I won't honor God, I have a problem with how well I understand his love for me. It always comes back to that.

Always. Always. Always. So they doubted God's love. They dishonored his name. And then look what that led to. In chapter two verse 10,

he says, are we not all children of the same father? Are we not all created by the same God? Then why do we betray each other violating the covenant of our ancestors? And he goes on to explain this this covenant. What he's talking about is their marriages.

So isn't it funny? We doubt God's love, so we dishonor his name. We're not all in with him. And then the next thing they do is they defile the covenant of marriage. Their personal relation, the highest level of personal relationship, they stop doing it God's way. Because

we we will get selfish. If we're not gonna if we're gonna doubt God's love, we're we're gonna dishonor his name. We're definitely not gonna honor what he meant for our marriages. What was happening was the men were leaving their wives going after foreign women who happened to be younger, by the way.

So glad twenty five hundred years later, we're not the same, And the issue is they're running after foreign wives that had foreign gods. They didn't worship God. So they basically thought, I'm going after a purely physical,

emotional experience, and I want to be with someone. I want to have this sexual pleasure, and I want to do this, and that's what a relationship is to them. They didn't think about marriage as being a covenant that declares something about God is. They made it that marriage and

being with another person is about happiness. It's not about happiness. Marriage was a covenant that was intended to point us to holiness. Now happiness is a byproduct of that.

But they turned into a culture of they they thought, I don't want be alone. I want this. I want to experience that, and they're destroying their marriages. But doesn't that make sense? If I doubt that God really loves me, I'm probably not gonna go all in in my trust to him,

and then my personal relationships are gonna be marred, and I'm gonna be an idiot. Once again, men.

Do you lead your home? Or do you use your home?

It's a throat punch. But that's what happens when I disconnect from this truth. God has always loved me.

If I don't believe that, I'll run after all these other things. And you know, by the way, that's exactly how this all got started. Go back to Genesis and how Satan tricked Adam and Eve. Basically, you know what he said is, God's holding out on you. You can't trust him. He's keeping something from you.

In other words, don't trust his love. And every other problem we have comes from that. So once again, do you really believe that God loves you? Then you gotta know that he created marriage for a reason, and you should go after that reason and trust him and trust him.

But nope. They deny they doubted God's love, dishonored his name, defiled the covenant, and then you know what's funny is when they defiled the covenant, they went back and he says, then you come and you throw yourself at the altar and you cry and you pray, and then you wonder why I don't answer your prayers.

It's because he calls their their their their their prayers, their their crying out, their repentance. He calls it hypocritical because it's not really repentance. They come to God and they cry over it. They feel convicted. They feel bad, but they don't turn from it. That sounds weird, doesn't it?

You you have kids. They've done that to you, haven't they? They feel really bad over getting caught in something, and they cry, but then they don't want to stop doing it. That's what we do. That's what many of us are doing as we're doing right now. There's something in your life you're doing that with God right now.

You cry to God, and and and we've we've we've turned our faith into this emotional feeling only.

So what we do is we we've created a faith as a as a Christian that if you've been church long enough, it's an I come to church. I listen to the guy. I sing a few songs. I'll throw my leftovers in the offering plate if I have any. I might serve a little bit here and there, but if I get busy, don't expect too much of me. You know, and then I get all grumpy about it. And then the reality is you come in here and you hear a sermon that kinda hits you and makes you feel convicted, and you cry about it. And you pray in this moment, and then you think the crying was the repentance.

The crying is only the conviction. Repentance means turn and go the other way.

If you're really worried about your work and your job and all these things not working out and your finances for your family and your marriage and you're crying out to God, but you won't honor God with your money, and you won't honor your marriage as a covenant of of love that you choose to do. And, man, you won't love your wife like Christ loved the church, which means he died for them, but you don't want to die for them. You they they make you wanna

make them die, but not you not for them. And you add all that up, and you cry about it in here, but then you don't do anything about it. That's exactly what they were doing. And then we say, but but but Bill, that's it. Some of you are Bible scholars enough. You went to Christian schools,

and you're saying, well, that's the Old Testament. That was the legalism. That's law. We're under grace. What is your view of God's morality of what he calls us to be? You really think that the grace of God that Jesus bought was so you can blow God off?

God's grace was not so I could blow him off. It was so he doesn't blow me up. He's about to say it here in a minute. I'll show you. They they basically they they they they denied because look what happened. They defied the covenant.

But then they go in, and so later on after he tells them that, he ends in verse 17 with this next one. He goes, you have wearied the Lord with your words. How have we wearied him? You ask.

He goes, you have wearied him by saying that all who do evil are good in the Lord's sight, and he is pleased with them. You have wearied him by asking, where is the God of justice? Doubting God's love led to dishonoring his name, lest to deviling the covenants in their marriages,

led to denying God's goodness, basically. They're denying his justice, meaning they're denying you know what this is basically what they're saying is? But God, don't get it. You're saying we didn't do these things, that we don't love you back. But man, you're the one that doesn't love. You're not very good. You basically basically, it's the classic question. Why do you let bad things happen to good people, and why do you let these good things happen to the bad people? That's what they're saying. And some of you, that's your excuse. That's that's your thing like, hey, you know what? Here's why I have a hard time with embracing God's love. I just look around, and he seems to be blessing horrible people. There seems to be injustice, and yet he's letting bad things happen to good people. Can I ask you a question?

If you ask that question, which type of person do you think you are?

Bad people don't sit there and go, God, why do you let good things happen to me? And have all these bad things happen to those people? You rarely say that. You know who gets mad and questions God in these moments? It's because you think you're a good person.

What you're mad at is the unfairness to you. That's why you don't want to embrace. That's why when you hear me say, we should give, we should serve, we should be on mission. You don't know my life. I've struggled. I've had this happen and this happen, and I have so much yes, bad things have happened to you. But while you're looking around, you're assuming leave me alone because I'm the good one that bad things happening. What about all the people that are good, that are bad, that good things are happening to? Go bother them. Where's God in all this? God doesn't care about me. You're assuming you're good. You know what God's answer to why does he allow bad things happen to good people? You know what the answer is? He doesn't.

Spoiler alert. By God's definition of good, there ain't one of us that is.

That'd be like being prison. You're on death row for killing a person. And you're like, this isn't fair. Why is that person that killed two people not in on death row with me? Okay. Maybe they should be on death row. But does that mean you should not? You realize there's no good and bad. There's gooder bad and bad or bad.

Some of us are gooderer, some of us are baderer, But none of us are just pure good. Jesus is the only man who's ever good, because God's definition is good, is holy, righteous, and perfect. And none of us are. When we say, why does he allow bad things happen and vice versa, we are making a judgment scale by comparison.

And this is the most hilarious thing I've ever and I do it myself. I am just as guilty. I'm telling you, I do this all the time, and I catch myself, is when I say who's good, who's bad, if you're humble, and I like to at least false humility, I say, I'm the bottom of the barrel of good.

And that's what a lot of us do. I know I'm no saint, but what you're really saying is, I am the line. Me and on this way is good. Anything worse than me is bad. Yeah. You just got punched in the throat because it's true, isn't it?

And that's what I do. You do it. I do it. That's what they're doing. And it's this it's the idea of we're doing it by comparison. We're judging God by our comparisons, and we've become the judge. And they turn around and blame God for what we do.

That's what we do. And that's that's our number one excuse for not trusting God fully. For many of you, what you think has been unfair to you and them is why you don't serve. I got burned. I'm not serving anymore. Also, so something happened to you because broken hurt people hurt people,

and so your answer is to reject what God's asked you to do. I don't give because you know what? I've had a hard time, and if God was so great, he'd bless me more financially so I could give. We use the comparison thing as our excuse,

and we try to turn it back and blame it. That's what you realize that's what Adam did when God called him out in the garden. He blamed God. He said, why'd you do this? He goes, well, it was the woman that you gave me. He's not blaming her. She can't help it. She you just made her that way. It was the faulty craftsmanship

of you, which by the way is exactly not already in mirror. He's supposed to protect. Do you realize go read this this section where they they take the fruit. You've probably always assumed that Adam was somewhere else when Satan's talking to her.

Read it again. He was standing right next to her. He listened to the whole conversation and didn't butt in, didn't say a word. He failed to protect his home. You know why? He was buying the lie, and he wanted to know if it would be good. And he let her eat first. Oh, she didn't die. I guess the death thing isn't true.

He was an idiot. I'm so glad twenty five hundred years later, we've gotten so much better. Right, guys?

You see, they were making this excuse. They're like saying then they're blaming God.

It's crazy. I had that happen. I I remember when I was five years old. I I'm only five months old. I don't remember it. I've heard this story so many times. I literally see it in my head. I don't know how, but it happened. My my I was sitting in a little, you know, crib kind of thing next to my dad, and my sister was playing just like four feet away from my dad, and she kept grabbing the cord to a a power cord to a glass lamp. And when I go, stop. It's gonna break. Don't do that. Play over here. And then she wouldn't listen. Well, next thing, you know, like a minute later, she yanks this thing right off, smashes, breaks.

And my dad just instinctively said, hey, what have you done? Now he knows what she did. That's why when God ever says, what have you done? It's not he was right there. And she she he just said it. And she goes, I didn't do it.

And my dad's like, oh, now? Alright. I'll take the bait. Then who did it? Because I was right here, and she goes, baby. She threw me under the bus. Innocent, pure, good me.

Some of us, that's what you're doing on why you're fighting trusting God with what he's asked you to trust him with. And you know where the the hold up on that is? Is not force yourself out of just guilt. It's what do you not get about how he has always loved you.

If you understand the depth of his love and what he was willing to go through, you probably should trust him in all this other stuff too. It goes back to I've always loved you. Because they doubted God's love, dishonored God's name, defiled God's covenant, denied God's goodness.

So then he calls them to repent. Remember I said God's grace is not for us to blow God off? Grace doesn't mean I have Jesus, so I'm just gonna keep denying God's math for life. It's you think that that's legalism. No. We need to do all the things that sound legalistic,

but there's one difference. We're not doing it for his love. We're doing it from his love. Legalism says I'm gonna force myself to do all these things because then I need it's like what I said. We reverse the big idea.

I will I will trust God fully in order for him to love me faithfully. No. He already loves you faithfully.

But because you realize that, that he loved you even though you're unlovable, even though we are failures and we fail over and over again, he loves us anyways, and that's why I should want to love him back. Jesus in first John, it says, we can love God because he first loved us. It's only through his love can we do any of this.

Because look what he says. You think his grace is so I can blow him off? No. So he doesn't blow us up. Look what he says in verse six of chapter three. I am the Lord and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed.

He goes, you're saying I'm the one that changed, that I'm not good, that I blessed this that caused you got it all wrong. I'm the one that doesn't change, and that's why you're still breathing. What is he referring to? He's referring to what he said in verse chapter one verse two. How he has not changed is, I will always

love you. The reason I haven't wiped you out so if if if you're sitting here and blowing God off and life still seems to be you think you're still winning, the reason it feels like you're still winning is not because you're doing it right. It's because God loves you, and it is by his grace you're not annihilated.

And that is a great, great, great gift to us. We all deserve to be destroyed. But just because he chooses not to because he loves us, doesn't mean blow him off. It means, wow. He could blow me up, but he chooses not to. Why wouldn't you trust him? What are you so afraid of?

Or so what's the habit, the hurt, the hang up, the the the thing that's just I want to go with this.

It goes back to do you understand he loves you? So he calls him. So what look what he says. He goes, ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,

says the lord of heaven's armies. But you ask, how can we return when we have never gone away? There again, it's that refrigerator blindness I was talking about last week. You're looking right at something and don't see it. They're like, wait, we we don't have anything to to repent from?

I've already kind of explained this, but I think that happens the longer we've been in church, especially in our culture. You've worked out your system of what church is to you,

and you're happy with it. You're comfortable with the amount you come, the amount you worship, the amount you give, the amount you serve, the amount you share your faith, but you're only you have the small little amount, and you don't really honor God. He loves you, but you're not really loving him back.

He's not getting your first and your best. But somehow we've done this long enough that we believe this is the way we're supposed to do it. And so then we think we're okay.

And there we have a valid reason why we just don't love God back the way he's asked us to. And that's what they're saying. And then again, they said how? And you know what he goes back to?

Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me. You ask, what do you mean? When do we cheat? You've cheated me with your tithes and your offerings due to me. So now he goes back to the beyond just the sacrificial offerings, they're actual

gifts and offering, their tithes and offerings. Because you're not bringing it in. You're spending it on yourself. You're not bringing your first and your best. You bring your leftovers, and if there's no leftover, you don't bring it. And he calls them out again. Twice he calls them out. Does God have a problem with money?

No. We do. It's our number one idol because we like to have pleasurable experience. We want to feel safe. We want to feel happy. Well, guess what in our culture, what allows us to buy what we feel is safety and happiness? Money. God is your safety.

God is where you get your joy. Being on mission with God is what you should be doing. But if I worship money, so God is giving us an opportunity to fight that,

and to be blessed by seeing him take care of you when you trust him. But you're cursed. If you don't trust him, you're on your own. And that's why even when you make good money, you're still worried. You're waiting for that other shoe to drop. You're waiting for that time. You stress, like, gotta keep going because I can't lose this business. I can't. You're always stressed about money and time when you don't honor God with your money and time.

He even says that. He goes, you've cheated me. He goes, you're robbing me because it's mine. You realize when God says you rob me, it's this weird idea that you think what you have is yours. You realize we're just managers. We're not owners.

So he goes, first of all, you got the wrong idea of who owns what. You're robbing me. But then he goes on to say, and you're robbing yourself

because you're missing out on the blessing of when you free up and trust me fully and you see that I take care of you, all of a sudden you're not worried about that next financial drop. You're not worried about what the stock market does

because you've actually seen God take care of you even when it didn't make any sense. And so now you have a freedom, a relaxation, a lack of anxiety over it. So you're only robbing yourself in that. Because me asking you to give is a gift. But then you're also robbing others.

Because I've heard people say, well, God doesn't need my money. God doesn't need your money or your good works. But you know who does? Your neighbor. The people we're supposed to reach. So he says you rob God, and in doing so, you rob yourself and others.

And you ultimately rob yourself the blessing of what God wanted to do with your life, which was way more meaningful than what we do with our lives. So he's calling but yet again, is it to force myself? No. It's to go back and say the problem is if I don't trust God with this, it means

I love my money as a way to keep me safe and secure and happy more than God. Which means I don't really understand how much he loves me. Because if I do all that, it leads to the last thing.

He says in chapter three down into verse 13, you have said terrible things about me, says the Lord. Isn't that weird? He starts off with, I've always loved you, and then he ends it with, why do you say such terrible things about me?

And he goes, but you say, what do you mean? What have we said against you? And he says, you have said, what's the use of serving God? What do we have gained by obeying his commands or trying to show the lords of heaven's armies that we are sorry for our sins? From now on, we will call the arrogant blessed, for those who do evil get rich, and those who dare God to punish them suffer no harm.

They're right back to the argument of you let bad people get away with stuff and we're host. They're right back to the comparison. In other words, what he says at the end is, the last thing they did is they despised God's service. They despised serving God. And you realize what all the middle stuff

can go different with directions. But in this story, the first dispute will always take you to the last one. If if I doubt God's love, I will always end up despising God's ways.

I guarantee it. You might be right now going, amen, brother. I'm serving. I'm giving. I'm I'm doing all the things I just said. You're you're you're doing the right behaviors, but in your heart, you're doing them for all the wrong reasons.

You're either trying to earn God's love, or you just think he doesn't really love me that much, so maybe this will show it. Or I'm doing it out of fear and guilt, and that's the only reason I'm doing it, but I don't embrace God's love. I guarantee if you are doing all the right things, but have not truly understood how much God loves you, I'm calling the shot right now. At some point in the future, you're gonna walk away from it. You are gonna despise God. You're gonna check out. And some of you, that's the pattern. You're in and out. You're in and out. You do the the religious hokey pokey. I see all the time. I don't see you forever. You show back up. It's like, wow. Where have you been? I, you know, I had issues. You're like, I put my left foot in. I put my left foot out. I put my left foot in. I put my left foot out, and then I ran away from God.

And the whole reason is it all comes back to this. If you doubt his love, you'll despise his ways and everything in between. That's the bottom line. That's what it's saying. So it comes back. Do you understand that God really loves you? Because look what it says. It says this right here.

In chapter three, after they challenge his goodness and his fairness, he goes, you know what? I am gonna solve all this.

When he says in verse one, look, I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly is surely coming, says the Lord of heaven's armies.

And then he goes on in chapter four to describe the end the the end of the book book of Revelation,

and basically says, I'm gonna come in power. And you know what? Those who understand my love and embrace my love, that's gonna be a happy day. Those that don't, that reject me and keep running away, that's gonna be a very terrifying day. And then the book ends, and God stops talking for four hundred years.

But it's funny. He says, I will send the one to prepare the way for me, and then I'll come.

How does that sound when four hundred years later the book of John opens up like this? The Gospel of John. In the beginning, the word already existed. The word was with God, and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. God sent a man, John the Baptist,

to tell about the light so everyone might believe because of his testimony. John himself was not the light. He was simply a witness to tell about the light. The one who's the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. Doesn't it sound like it's a direct connection to those first two verses?

The one he sent was John, and then he's coming. And the one who's coming is the word. He's the word made flesh.

The word of God. He's also known in the Old Testament, Jesus before he had a bod, before he became took on the nature of a man, the the incarnation as they call it, is described as the Lord of heaven's armies. The the commander of heaven's armies. So when when the God says, I will make this happen, he will come, I have said so, it's him. It's the word. The actual word of God becomes

the living word of God.

So he wrote it. He said it. He goes, you don't have to worry about this. I'm gonna deal with this. And then four hundred years later, a guy named John shows up, starts declaring the way of the word. And he says in the last chapter of Malgic, those who are the are the the remnant, they're gonna get this. They're gonna see it. They're gonna look for it. And when John started to read, that's why a thousand went out and started to get baptized. They knew what Malachi said. They go, he's coming now. This is what he said. And then he showed up, and then it says, he came into the very world he created, but the world didn't recognize him. We got too busy with other things. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him, except for the remnant. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They're reborn not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. And I love verse 14. So the word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing

love and faithfulness. We have seen his glory, the glory of the father's one and only son.

God, Jesus came in power and might, but what he was bringing was unfailing love and faithfulness. We can fully trust God, but we first must fully embrace that he has always loved you. Is the key. Otherwise, we'll miss it. We'll miss it.

Why do you think that what we're about to take here is communion, this thing called communion, the last supper? You know, that we're given these little little things with a thimble of grape juice and a Styrofoam thing on the front. It's really not tasty at all. Why do we do this?

Because Jesus, the night before he died, took bread and broke it and said, this is my body broken for you. He then took the cup said, this is my blood spilt for you, basically, because I've always loved you. And then he said these words. This is one of the few ritualistic

kind of things that Jesus called us as Christians to do together. He said, do this in remembrance of me. So of all the things we can remember Jesus for, why does he always want us to remember his body being broken, his blood being spilled, his death?

Because if God would leave heaven and die for the ones that he have a that have rebelled against him, if you can see this, can't you see the ultimate act of love this is? Do you know what Jesus did when you and it's not just his body being beaten and bruised. Like you think, okay, so he took a beating from me. No.

And the Bible says that God made him to be sin, which means God laid God the Father laid all the sin. That's why you need a triune God, because he stayed God, but at the same time, God laid all the sin, meaning the guilt. You ever you ever do something bad and you feel kind of a guilty conscience is kind of stressful?

It's said that God impugned, placed all of the guilt of all the sins ever committed onto Jesus'

soul. He felt it all. Took it that was the worst part. That's what made him cry out, my God my God, why have you forsaken me? That was way more brutal than the physical death. And he took it, and then he beat it. So we wouldn't be destroyed because God doesn't change, and he's always loved you.

But it doesn't work. God's math doesn't add up if I don't accept this. I need to see how much God loves me or none of it makes sense. In other words, before we do this, I wanna pray, but the best way I can explain this before we go into this is some of you need to accept Jesus' love right now.

But the best way I can explain this is when I was talking to my dad once, my if you don't know, my dad was in three wars, spent six years, six and a half years of his life in combat. World War two, Korea Vietnam, war hero, but in all this stuff, he saw some horrible things in his life that were really traumatic.

But he said there's only one thing that made him bust, break down, sobbing on the battlefield. It happened at the Battle of Okinawa in World War two.

We're gonna take this island because they need it, but the native Okinawans, the Japanese had been brutal with them. And so part of the thing they were happy to come is they were gonna free and liberate them like they had The Philippines and all this stuff. And so the Okinawans, they come on, and my dad was on the landing craft as they're coming ashore. He saw something that just just broke him. He looked up and on the cliff next to where they're coming in, there was Okinawa women with their babies and their children, and they were jumping off the cliffs and killing themselves, smashing themselves on the rocks below.

And my dad couldn't get it.

He's like, don't they understand that we're coming as an army in power and might, but to free them from the enemy. Why would they kill themselves? Why are they doing he just sobbed. He said, we're here to save you. Well, they didn't trust that. Because the Japanese had told them over and over again, if the Americans come,

what they'll do to you and your children, you'd be better off dead than what they're gonna do. It's like that same line from the pit of hell that you'd be better off jumping off a cliff than trusting God with your life. Because God comes in all of his might to blow me up. No. He came to free you.

And you know what it took to change the Okinawans' minds? It was when a bunch of 18 year old US marines and army men ran into battle, And the Japanese tried to use the Okinawans as human shields. And the Americans put their lives on line and died to not kill the Okinawans.

And more died because the way they fought was they wouldn't take the bait. And when they saw the soldiers shedding their blood for them, that's when it all made sense.

That is what all the prophets are trying to foretell us. That's what we've been foretold. God has always loved you. And when you see how He's loved you so faithfully, you can then choose to trust him fully. So I wanna pray. We're just gonna take this thing and be done.

But some of you need to before we do this, it doesn't mean anything unless you know Jesus. So I just wanna pray for you.

So if you're here and you've never put your faith in Jesus, just pray this pray something like this. Make it your own prayer in your own heart. Just pray, dear Lord Jesus, thank you for taking the bullet from me. Thank you that even though I've run from you,

even though I've dishonored your name, I've disrespected my the covenants of my relationships, I've I've brought my last and my worst, not my first and my best to you, that you always loved me. And I thank you that you went to the cross died for me and you took that guilt, you took that shame, you took that death

so I can have life. So right now, in the best way I know how, put my faith in you and nothing else. And Lord, help me to go from this moment as I celebrate and remember your sacrifice and go forward from your love in following you, not for your love. Thank you. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

He took the bread, broke it, and said, this is my body broken for you. Take and eat.

You said this is my blood spilled for you because I've always loved you drink.

In desperation. I turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night. Then through the darkness your loving kindness or through the shadows of my soul the work is finished

body began to breathe. And out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave has no

We celebrate that our God is alive and that he loves us, that he has poured out his love upon us. So as we go into this week, may we hold on to that truth. May we hold it up and let it be a light in the darkness that our God loves us, that he died for us, and that he's holding us in his hand. Amen, church.