Malachi 3:16-18 His Treasured Possession

Good morning to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series,

Dead Religion, taking us through the book of Malachi. Let's listen in. Good morning,

Recast Church. I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, and we're going to go ahead and get started. So if you can find your seats, that would be awesome.

And I want to welcome you to this Sunday morning gathering of Recast Church. Without us arriving, this is just a cafeteria, but with our arrival, it becomes church.

Not the space, but we are the church, and we come together and gather together as the gathering.

And I don't know if you realize it, that's actually what the meaning of the word church is. In the Greek, it's ecclesia, and in English, we call it church, and it is just simply the gathering of God's people.

And so welcome to this gathering. We come together each week to see, really kind of think in terms of our five senses, what we gather together to do.

We come together each week to see with our eyes. You can look around the room and see that you're not alone in this walk with God.

You're not alone. And that's something that's beneficial. That's something you can't get sitting in your den watching a sermon online, or just kind of reading a good book, or having your own quiet time, or your own devotions.

You need the gathering of God's people to see with your eyes that there are others out there fighting this fight of faith alongside of you.

We also come together to hear with our ears the glory of God through singing and through the proclamation of his word that we're going to hear here in just a moment.

We come together to feel, to feel the love of God expressed through the closeness with other people.

Maybe sometimes what we need, as much as I'm not a touchy -feely kind of individual, sometimes what you really need is you need a hug, and you can be

Jesus to somebody else by offering that closeness with somebody here this morning. And if we're honest, sometimes we gather together for the smell and taste of the goodness of God through his wonderful provision of coffee and donuts.

So all of those, wrapping up those five senses and just thinking about the gathering of God's people is a glorious thing.

Before I get too far into this, I want to warn you ahead of time that I have a bit of a congestion and asthma issue going on right now, and so I'm leaving for Uganda tomorrow.

I would appreciate your prayers for that flight with this thing. The doctor says I'm not contagious.

Doctor says that. But just bear with me. If I lose my voice here for a second or need to cough,

I've warned Eric, and he said he promised to turn the volume up if I cough. So actually, he'll turn it down,

I know. But we'll see. This is the longest I've been without a coughing fit in a while, so God is being gracious so far.

I would like to give everybody a brief update on the building. It continues to progress forward.

On the physical site, if you go out there over the next few weeks, every day there's going to be something different going on because they're going to be continuing to put up that steel.

And by the time that I return from Uganda in a couple of weeks, they're telling me that it should look like a building on the outside.

It should look almost like it's finished state externally. Obviously, that's the point where a lot of changes need to happen inside.

But with all of that, I want to clarify that things are pretty tight. Now, we don't talk a lot about finances.

Last week was actually one of the first sermons I've ever given on finances. But I want to let you know that if you were at the family meeting last

Sunday, information changed significantly from Sunday night to Monday morning, about eight hours after we shared with you our financial status regarding the building.

We received a couple of emails that changed a lot and impacts the amount that we have in the bank. We have a couple of unforeseen cost overruns on the building that really pertain to the excavating that makes things very tight.

So currently, Recast is in a position where the money to furnish the building, think in terms of buying chairs to sit in, tables to sit at, equipment for the children's ministry, all of that.

It's likely to be limited only to what we take in over and above the budget for the next four months.

So that's how much we will have. Right now, what I'm trying to say is that currently, the balance for buying chairs or anything extra, we'll have a building, but we will have zero right now, as of now, to buy chairs, furnish the children's department, all of that kind of stuff.

So I would ask that you would be prayerfully considering your involvement in that over the next few months.

Speaking frankly, we have a major need in the expansion fund for these next four months, and if you're in a position to help out financially, if you've been waiting for us to ask, maybe you're sitting there and you're kind of saying, they've never asked, so I didn't know there was a need.

We are asking now for you to get involved in giving to the expansion fund if you're able. Some of you may have set aside some money for charity that you and your wife or you think about and pray about and consider how to give.

I would ask you to prayerfully consider that expansion fund for that. And as I said last week, God doesn't need your money, but instead, he wants your heart.

I would be terrified at the notion that anybody sitting here is going, yeah, one more church is looking for my money.

My goodness, don't let that get in the way of your relationship with God. I want more than anything for your heart to connect with God in a vital way.

Don't let money be in the way of that. Your giving is between you and the Lord and what he lays on your heart because your heart is given to him.

And so, that's between you and him. Our church, I would encourage you, has been amazingly, amazingly generous over the eight years of our existence.

It has been amazing and I'm confident that God has a plan to pull us through what is looking up, looking and shaping up to be a pinch point in our finances.

But God is amazing. He's taken care of us all along. I'm confident he's going to get this.

So be in prayer over that. Last week in Malachi, we saw God indicate that the way we handle our finances is indeed an indication of our hearts.

And if you missed that message, I encourage you to check that out on the podcast. If you weren't here, it's the first time, like I said,

I've explicitly preached on finances in the eight years of preaching and I hope it put things in perspective for you.

So this week, the book is moving toward resolution. We're going to be back in Malachi. God has been addressing the nation of Israel.

They returned to their land from exile and settled into a life of religious rituals without heart.

So they are giving. They are sacrificing. They are doing things, but they're doing them out of dead religion.

They're doing them based on rules and regulations without their heart engaged and really a mind towards God.

And I think that many of us, if we're honest, we've experienced something like that in our lives before. How many of you would raise your hand and just be honest and say that there's been a time of dryness in your spiritual walk at times with God?

Have you been there where it's been kind of just going through the motions, showing up for church on Sunday, maybe even reading your

Bible with little effect or impact on your life or maybe even just making some sacrifices and still not quite feeling that connection with God?

But for the first time in this book, we find that some of the people are heeding and paying attention to the ministry of Malachi.

They're starting to make some headway in regard to their heart engagement with God. Now remember that his entire message throughout this book as we're drawing to a close is return to God, fear

God, and honor God. Now it's obvious if you study this book in depth that God desires more than just our religious practice.

I hope you knew that. He wants more than just your religious practice. He wants more than your tithing, more than your singing songs, more than your church attendance, more than sacrifices.

He wants our love, our honor, our reverence. Our esteem is what our text is going to say this morning.

Without a heart that loves God, religious duties and sacrifices are actually repugnant to him.

He says, I wish that you would just close the temple doors and stop sacrificing earlier in the book of Malachi.

I wish you'd just cut it out. It's disgusting to him when we perform these religious duties without a real acknowledgment of who we're praying to, who we're talking to, who we're offering these things to.

He wants us to give, he wants us to sing, he wants us to attend the worship gathering, but he wants us to do that out of love for him and a love for him that recognizes that he has loved us first.

Our text this morning is the most optimistic and hopeful in the entire book of Malachi. God shows that he will one day take those who honor him and craft them into a treasured possession.

The people of God who respect and fear God will one day be treasured and greatly valued by God.

For now, where we live today in 2017 here in Matawan, we do not see a clear distinction between the wicked and the righteous.

Blessings fall on those who do evil. Blessings fall on those who do right. Some people are wealthy by doing good.

Others obtain wealth by evil means. Did you know that? Have you seen that? Have you lived that?

You've experienced that. But God openly declares that a time of great distinction is coming, and this week we get to focus on those who have chosen to fear the

Lord as the highest. Choosing him even over themselves and over their own glory.

So as the band comes up and gets ready to lead, let's open our Bibles to Malachi chapter 3, verses 16 through 18.

Again it's Malachi 3, 16 through 18. A shorter text this morning. If you need a

Bible, could you do me a favor and raise your hand if you don't have a means to navigate to the Bible on your lap? We want everybody to have that in front of them.

And Mike just has a Bible back there that he'd like to bring to you. So anybody, anybody who needs a

Bible there. All right, a recast. This is

God's word. I'm going to ask you to do something different this morning. I don't do this very often. I'm going to ask you to stand for the reading of God's word.

I just am convicted that this is important for us to respect, to recognize that God is going to speak to us here for a moment.

This isn't Don speaking. This is God. Malachi 3, 16 through 18.

Then 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. 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.

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. You can be seated as we pray.

Father, I thank you so much for the promise of us being a treasured possession for you. What a glorious reality that we can be okay and right and brought into a right relationship with you, and that in the end you are crafting for yourself a kingdom of people who will bring honor and glory to you.

Father, I pray that that would be our reality now, that is we have a chance to sing songs. Father, that we would worship you in spirit and in truth.

Father, that we would worship you from hearts that recognize the great love you have lavished on us, and in turn want to respond and reflect that with gratitude back to you.

Father, give us thankful hearts. Give us worshipful hearts now as we sing, in Jesus' name, amen.

Have your Bibles open to Malachi chapter 3, verses 16 through 18. If you have that on your lap, then that just lets me know that you can follow along, and that way you can see that the flow of the message is kind of just walking us through the text, and you can glance down there and easily see what

God wants to communicate to us this morning. A good question to ask yourself whenever you read the

Bible is, what is God doing in this text that I'm reading? Sometimes he's taking action, and the text tells us what

God is doing, and that helps us understand how God rolls. That's beneficial for us in our theology, the great word theology that can really stymie some people and sometimes gives the image of people reading dusty books in old libraries or something like that.

But theology, everybody in this room has a theology. Everybody you've ever met has a theology.

They have a belief about God. An atheist has a theology. Their theology is that there is no

God, but they have a theology, a belief system about the Almighty.

And so, that's what we come to the text for. We come to the text, ultimately, to allow the word of God to impact our understanding of who he is, because the word of God is,

Scripture is, his self -disclosure, what he wants to communicate to you and me about himself.

So the activity of God in Scripture is a great way, I would suggest to you, really, the primary way to understand

God. So the outline of our text this morning is pretty straightforward from the text because we see God move in each one of these verses.

In verse 16, here's the structure, God hears in verse 16. Second, God spares in verse 17.

And lastly, we're going to see the God who distinguishes in verse 18. Now I think we all know when we think about this first one in verse 16,

God hears, we all know that God is listening. How many of you knew that before you walked in here this morning, that God is listening to you?

That he hears you, he's there. He is omnipresent. He is in all places at the same time.

I have a hard time listening and paying close attention to just one person. Anybody with me on that?

You going to leave me alone? It's just me. Oh, a couple of you. Okay, good. That makes me feel better in my problems, right?

That's one of the things that we do. But I have a hard time listening to just even one person and God takes it all in.

Have you ever thought about that? He takes it all in at once. How many people are talking? How many people are interacting around the world right now?

And he's got all that. He's got a lot of RAM in that processor to be able to process all of that information simultaneously.

There's a lot of stuff going on and he gets it all. That can be a pretty scary thought.

Anybody ever been intimidated a bit by the fact that God's listening to you? Anybody ever just kind of been like, whoa, wait a minute, he heard that, or he heard me say this, or whatever?

It can be scary. And the fact is, he is indeed listening to us at all times. But there's something encouraging in our text about the reality that God hears us.

So look with me at verse 16 to see the God that hears. Those who feared the Lord, the text tells us, spoke with one another.

Now in the context of what has been throughout the book of Malachi, it's a very blanket condemnation toward the people of God.

We now find out that some in Israel during Malachi's day, this is the first indication that we have, that some of them feared the

Lord. And I believe that in part it's because Malachi's been preaching to them. Malachi has been preaching the honor, the fear, the reverence of God, and I think some of them it's actually sinking in.

I believe that the ministry of Malachi preaching to the people to fear the Lord was beginning to have an impact on the people.

I think we see Malachi as somewhat of a successful prophet. The people are going, whoa, wait a minute, we ought to fear

God. We've lost sight of who he is. We've lost sight of how awesome and glorious he is.

And it began to have an impact on their hearts, the preaching of Malachi, and going, we haven't revered him.

We haven't seen him in the glory and majesty that he deserves. And as Malachi is speaking and preaching to them, they're going, oh,

I'm getting it. And much like we might leave this place, hopefully from time to time, it would encourage my heart, if I knew that you were leaving this place and discussing the message with some friends or family over lunch,

Malachi's congregation left having discussions with one another about the fear of the

Lord. They left interacting with one another and they're talking to each other about these things and the

Lord, it says, paid attention to those conversations. He's listening in.

They aren't praying to him what they believe. They aren't talking to him about what they believe. They're talking to one another and God is listening to those interactions between the people.

This might seem a bit redundant. It says the Lord paid attention and heard them. It seems a bit redundant to us in English, but in Hebrew, it's more like God listened and he acted.

We expect action when we see the phrase, God heard someone. Usually, all throughout scripture, that's a phrase in Hebrew that indicates

God is about to take action. He's going to do something. Listening is one thing.

Hearing them is another. It's like the cry of the Israelites in slavery in Egypt when

God heard them. He could hear them all the time, right? So why state it at this point in history?

Because he's about to act. He's hearing them in a meaningful way. When God hears, he acts, and in our text, the action takes the form of him calling some angels to record in his book of remembrance the names of those who were moved to fear him enough to talk with others about him and esteem his name before others.

Ever think about the fact that you have the opportunity with your voice and with your words and gather together with others to esteem the name of God, to declare his glories, to declare his excellencies, to lead others into a place of honor and reverence to our

God, just simply by the way we speak? There are a couple of significant observations that should impact us in our daily life here in 2016 that we see here in verse 16.

First is simply this. God is indeed listening to us, even when we're not praying. In this sense,

I would encourage all of us to live our lives like a prayer to God. Live your very life as if it were a prayer to God, considering all of our talk and even converting our thoughts and our actions from Monday through Saturday into thoughts to God.

Not leaving Sunday out. It's just that we tend to think of Sunday as a day to worship him. But all week long, rendering our thoughts as a prayer to God.

Some of us need to take a deep conviction from this that the very conversations we are having in our families, the way we're talking to our children, the way we're talking to our spouses, the way we interact with friends, the conversations we're having with our coworkers, are conversations that God is a participant in.

God participates in your conversations, and he is a very gifted listener. He's good at it.

He's better than us. He's a very good listener. He is not missing a word.

Now, I don't want to make this too convicting, because at the end of the day, this text is meant for encouragement, and I can see potential for me to use this as a two -by -four upside the head, stop talking dumb, and hit everybody over the head with that.

But this is meant for encouragement. These people in verse 16 are being rewarded and recorded in heaven because of the blessings that they're speaking, because they are speaking positive.

They're not getting punished because they're speaking negatively. Do you see the difference? God isn't listening over them to go, oh,

I got you on that one. Oh, you told that joke. Oh, you said this. Oh, you laughed at that. He's over them going, you're blessing my name.

You're bringing honor to me. He's looking for that. He's not looking simply for the absence of evil.

Some of us think if I could just walk through the day without doing any evil, I'd be okay. But God is literally looking for the presence of good in your life, the presence of blessing and benefit to others in your life, and that's what he's doing.

I hope that none of you get to the judgment day and feel good because you didn't tell dirty jokes or you didn't cuss out your kids when you got angry, so you're okay.

This is what God wants is for us to be a blessing to others. He's looking for righteous actions, for behavior that causes others to go,

God is amazing. I see him in your life. I see him through the way you talk. I see him in the way that you act. I see him in the way that you perform your work for your employer.

Wow, God is great. And that leads to the second observation. God wants us to speak words of fear and wonder to others about him.

He wants us to talk about the sermon together. He wants us to tell others what God is doing with us on our journey with him.

He wants us to share what we're reading from the Bible with one another. There is a significant value that God places on relationships in his community.

I hope you see that over and over in the text. It is a relationship with him vertically and a relationship with others horizontally.

Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself. We don't separate those two.

And so how do we show love for God? We show love for God by the way that we show love for others.

We're loving God when we're sharing these things with glory and with honor with others.

The New Testament tells us to limit our words to that which is beneficial for building others up and encouraging them.

Some of you are familiar with that. I would suggest to you that that's one of the most difficult and challenging things written in the

Bible. Don't speak anything except that which is beneficial for building others up.

How many of you find that challenging? How many of you, if that's the one thing that you could do this week, that would change your week? If you could just speak well to others and only speak words that were a blessing to others.

Building them up, making them stronger because you spoke. That would be radical in my life.

I'm confident that it would be radical in our church. It would be radical in our culture if we did that. But before we,

I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but James kind of is. And he explains that that's pretty difficult for all of us.

He actually says it's nearly impossible to tame the tongue. It's a challenge for us to speak positively.

And we need to practice this. I would encourage you, if you're not currently in a community group, community groups are wrapping up.

We're going to be starting sign -ups for those here in just a few weeks. Get connected in a community group. Or get moved into intentionality with other

Christians, inviting people over for dinner or gathering together with people at Main Street Pub. I don't know if you guys know with young kids,

Main Street Pub, free meals for your kids on Sundays. Get together with people and talk about what the word was.

I'm not even so high on myself that I think you should sit around and talk about my sermons, but at least get into a text and talk about what

God is doing with you. We need that practice. How many of you have significant deep spiritual conversations with people at work?

Probably not that much. Now you probably have to force that to some degree if you're going to do that, but how many of you would admit that maybe in your workplace you have practice to speak other than the honor of God?

Like if you were just to roll with your workplace and with the way that things go at your place of employment, you're learning and practicing speech and patterns that are not blessing others.

Like that's just the way that it works in your workplace. I know where some of you work. I know that it's not the most edifying and building up environments there, right?

Or in your neighborhood or amongst your family. Your family gathers a pattern of ways of interacting with one another with anger or clamor or just raised tempers and things like that.

We need to practice this. This is something to think in terms of. It's not just going to come naturally for me to build others up with my speech, to honor

God with my speech. I need context in which I can work through that. Small groups, community groups are a great opportunity for that.

Valuing God's word is important. We need practice. We need times when we speak with others who fear the

Lord. The Lord is listening and hearing us when we speak truth together.

It's an amazing thing. Second of all, in verse 17, so first we see that God hears, but we also see that God spares in verse 17.

Those who fear God are recorded in the books of heaven. Those books will be opened in the end and we studied through the book of Revelation last year and in Revelation 20 verses 12 through 15, two books are mentioned.

In that text, judgment is based on what is recorded in these two books. First salvation is granted according to those whose names are written in the

Lamb's book of life, the book of Jesus. Those who have put their faith and trust in Christ, their names are recorded in a book and judgment for heaven or hell is based on the name written in that book.

If you've put your faith and trust in Christ and every indication is that you're in that book, but yet there still stands another book, a book of deeds and rewards are given based on the book of deeds and condemnation is rendered to those whose names are not in the book of life, based on deeds.

So anybody who goes, anybody who is condemned to hell is going to be condemned to hell on the basis of the things that they did in this life and their sins are still on them and still clinging to them and they've not been forgiven and not been dealt with.

Those who have given their lives over to Christ, those sins have been cleansed and washed away and now the judgment is based on the good that's been done.

And these people who fear and honor God and return to Him with their hearts will belong to the

Lord, the text tells us. Notice it's in the future tense that they will be His in verse 17. A day of reckoning is coming in which all who are currently honoring

God by trust in His Son will be made up into a treasured possession. The people of God will be the treasure of God.

He is crafting a glorious people for His possession from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

He's going to craft that on one glorious day, that final day of judgment. And He will, according to this text, spare them.

He will spare them. He will spare them, the text says, as a man spares a son who serves him.

I was thoughtful and mindful a little bit of the prodigal son in this situation. There was one son who served the father and one son that didn't, and we often, we even title the sermon according to the one that didn't, but how many of you remember that there was one who stayed and served the father?

He was there. And that son was spared a lot of pain and a lot of suffering and a lot of difficulty because he stayed in the service of his father and even in the end, he's a little bit salty because his brother gets a celebration and the dad is like, dude, you've been with me all this time, you had refrigerator rights, you could eat anything you wanted,

I mean, it was all yours, it's been yours because you've served me and you've been here with me. He spares him.

The word spare, by the way, is a very colorful and picturesque word in the Hebrew language that makes it clear that these people were bound for destruction.

Those who on that last day will be spared, none of them are spared because they were born to heaven, they were good people from the outset and they always did good and they always did right and wow, they were goody two shoes and made it.

No, they were all bound for destruction. That is the default setting of the sinful human heart from birth, we are all worthy of destruction.

And the picture is that they're all falling over a cliff when they're snatched to safety. They're in the lion's jaws when they're rescued, yeah, that guy's just getting the dog there.

There is not uncertainty about anyone's destiny without God sparing them.

All are worthy of condemnation. They will surely perish if God doesn't spare them.

It is an active word of rescue, God coming in, swooping in and saving.

I want to be clear in this text that God is the one who spares them. The condition they are in spiritually when he rescues them is not one of strength but complete weakness and vulnerability.

Much like a person who is out to sea drowning and the rescue boat arrives and how many of you know that you need to ask for help?

You need to identify, if you're swimming and you're like, I got this, I can get to shore. Nobody's going to rescue you.

I mean, I was a lifeguard in college and somebody needs to declare that they're in trouble before you're going to seek rescue.

I mean, you don't go and rescue somebody who's a solid swimmer, swimming laps, right? They're doing fine. And you're like,

I got you. And they're like, get off me, bro. Lost count now. Thanks. Right?

I mean, that would be awkward. Like, how many of you know that there's something about admitting that you need help that makes you accessible to the person who is trying to save you?

We need to admit our weakness and our vulnerability to get there. On that final day of the wrath of God, we'll be poured out on those who reject him.

We're going to see that explained in terms of victory on Easter when I'm back from Uganda as we wrap up this book.

That's really, we're looking at here the benefit and the blessing for those who are in with Christ. And on that day, we're going to talk about the judgment and devastation that will be for those who are not going to be raised to new life.

But in verse 17, we see an explicit action of God to rescue and spare his people and to save them from the condemnation that they all deserve.

I'm not sure that the people in Malachi's time had a well -formed understanding of the cross of Jesus Christ, but they did have a well -formed view of atonement.

Maybe better than ours. Maybe more clear than ours. They knew that a lamb was supposed to be sacrificed in the place of sinners.

They had experienced that. They had taken their own lambs, some of them blind, some of them blemished. They hadn't followed the law, but they understood that sacrifices need to be made for sin.

They understood the scapegoat who would take the sins of the people on itself and then be cast outside of the city to die alone.

I believe that these people had a reasonable understanding that salvation was going to depend on God somehow removing their sins through sacrifice and atonement.

Had been beaten into them for generations. It was a part and parcel of their culture, the temple, the centerpiece of the worship of God and the sacrifices and atonement, atonement, atonement.

Blood to cover sins, blood to cover sins, blood to cover sins. What to them I think was future and fuzzy hope for redemption,

God's going to do this somehow through sacrifice and atonement, is now for us a sharp HD image of the

Son of God dying for us. If you had asked them in that time during Malachi's day, how will

God spare us? They would have likely said through a sacrifice to cover our sins.

He will spare us based on atonement. And all we add to this in our new covenant perspective is the name and changing the tense of the verb.

It's the only difference between their covenant and ours. He has saved us through the sacrifice of His Son and His name is

Jesus. That's what we know that they didn't. He will rescue anyone who will place their faith and trust in the sacrifice of that Messiah King.

The third thing we see here in the last verse, God hears, God spares, and lastly, God distinguishes.

We live in a culture where calling out distinctions is becoming more and more controversial. Do you see that? People are shying away from distinctions.

The NCAA has a new commercial out that declares genders don't play sports, athletes do. Anybody see that commercial?

You've been watching a little of the Final Four? Did anybody look at that and go, yeah, I kind of get the spirit behind that, but kind of at the same time struggle with it?

Anybody? It's kind of like, what are they getting at here? It seems like a good point if you really want to argue about words, but technically gender is a classification of people just like athlete is a classification of people, and so actually genders do play sports.

They do. I'm not trying to Dwight Schrute this commercial, false, you know, but I am trying to show that we all use classification.

We all do. Athlete is actually a classification, but some classifications are moving down in the polls.

Very basic, simple classification, like male and female, down in the polls, right, declining in popularity and popular opinion to be black and white about that which just seems to make biological sense, but I'm not going to get into all that.

I just say all of that to identify that one of the only classifications that God sees among humanity that really matters is one that is moving down in the polls as well.

This distinction that we see here in our text, the righteous and the wicked. This is a distinction that is blurred in our culture so much that I would suggest to you that many

Christians and even many of us in this room cannot even see the clear line that the Bible draws on this.

You think in terms of what is your definition of wicked and what is your definition of righteous, and I'm not convinced that many of us in this room would land where the

Bible lands on this. I say this because many of us, when we hear this distinction between righteous and wicked, sure, we can make some evaluation, we can make some distinction, like a distinction between Mother Teresa and Jeffrey Dahmer, right?

One righteous, one wicked. That's our mindset. Well, one who does good and serves others and one who does terrible things.

So we think we know evil and we think we know righteous, and we roll on with our unclear and fuzzy difference.

Well, what makes a righteous person? What makes a wicked person? Well, we think we have a good idea. Maybe it's the Ten Commandments.

Maybe it's some other standard that you've developed. Maybe it's how much they measure up to Jesus. Maybe that's it.

But the distinction is further explained at the end of verse 18, and it should bring us up short or at least make us pause for a minute and consider our own definition of righteous and wicked.

The difference between the wicked and the righteous is that the righteous serves

God. The righteous person is the person who serves God, and the wicked does not.

The righteous person serves God. The wicked person does not.

Notice that absent from that definition is any of the wrong that the wicked has done. Absent from that definition is any specific sin that declares a person wicked.

Do you hear that? Where we tend to turn to the extremity of a sin and go, that is wicked.

That's not what the Bible is saying here. It isn't what the wicked do that makes the person wicked.

It is not murder. It is not grand theft. It is not dealing drugs. It is not Ponzi schemes that makes a person wicked.

It is the absence of serving the Almighty. The absence of serving

Him that makes us wicked. In other words, we need righteousness.

We need positive to our account to be okay. It is never enough to clean the slate of wickedness.

That's not what you're shooting for in life. Your goal ought not to be a complete expunging of your record and the evil that you've done.

You need righteousness, righteous service to God credited to your account for you to be okay with Him.

That's why no amount of attempts to scrub up our own lives and clean ourselves from the wicked that we perceive, none of that will result in our righteousness.

The distinction between the righteous and the wicked comes down to a heart that honors and fears God, a heart that is spared through faith in His atoning work, and a heart that serves the

Almighty. Not merely out of duty, but out of a love for Him because He has first loved us.

Right now, the wicked and the righteous are mixed throughout our world. We have a hard time even seeing it with our own eyes.

We have a hard time really even discerning what it is. Justice can be confusing in a fallen world.

You know what I'm talking about? What is the truth? What isn't the truth? It's tough. But in the end,

God will make a distinction that will be clearly seen in His judgment of all people. He will make a distinction and we will see it with our eyes and we will say, just and true are you,

Lord. Just and true. And right in all of your judgments, says the book of Revelation.

It would be helpful for all of us to consider three questions this morning that come from these three actions of God in our text.

First, we saw that God listens. God hears. So what are you saying? What is

He hearing from you? Since we know that God listens to all we say, does it matter to know that He's taking that into account and acting on it and recording it?

I'm not saying this to place fear on all of us regarding bad language or things like that, although obviously clean that up if it's there.

I'd even say just grow up. Grow up. Grow up. This is a lot more about the things we claim about God.

Do we speak accurately about His honor and glory? Would others be moved to worship Him because of what we make clear to them by our speech?

Further, I would encourage you to take on the challenge to intentionally grow in community by getting together with other

Christians to practice speaking good words about God. We need to be in community for God to hear our conversations with each other.

He wants to use us to sharpen one another, even if it's just simply to invite a family to eat with you after church, as I said earlier, or take some time to talk with others about what

He's pressing on you. Maybe even in the gathering, maybe during connection time you'd find one person and kind of talk, ask them what they're studying, ask them what they're learning.

Be ready to share what God is doing with you. Second, if God is sparing people, are you being rescued?

Are you being rescued? God has provided one way for humanity to be rescued. It is through the sacrifice of His own

Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. He died to take on Himself the sin of the world.

And anyone who comes to Him by faith will be spared from the devastating eternal judgment that is coming for the wicked.

You see, those He is sparing, He will one day craft together as His treasured possession, the text tells us.

Isn't that a glorious thought, to be the treasured possession of God, that He treasures you?

He treasures His people together, and He will gather us together. And I would suggest to you that as much as we might talk in these terms, we are not merely tools for His glory.

We are not trinkets or trophies of the Almighty to be displayed eternally in His trophy case.

We are treasured. Those who belong to Him are deeply loved, and He will gloriously care for His sons and daughters for eternity on a new earth that He is crafting for us.

He will wipe away our tears, He will remove pain, sin, and death, and we will forever be

His treasured possession. The people on whom, we will be the people on whom

He will lavish His eternal and extravagant love. Lastly, if God is a

God who distinguishes, are you believing in that distinction? If we believe that there is indeed a distinction between the righteous and the wicked as God defines it, then we know that bringing more into the service of the

King is the primary goal of those who are in His kingdom. Why do we still have breath?

Why didn't He just take us to heaven to be with Him when we gave our lives to Christ? Because He has a role for us to play in the lives of those around us.

Because He has a call on each one of us. Each one of us, by the way, as an individual, we've got a limited sphere of influence.

Do you acknowledge that? You've got a limited orb that you can impact and really work with, but together, as a church, do you realize how many people we can impact for the cause of Christ as a church?

It's an amazing thing to think about. How many connections? If you were just to go with Facebook connections alone, how many friends that we don't share in common that would be out there?

It'd be amazing. The hope of mankind, the hope of your neighbors, the hope for your families, the hope for your co -workers, the only hope for your friends for eternity is that they would honor

God by running to Him for the mercy that is found in His Son. And from that place of allegiance to Him and with a new heart granted, and from a place of new purpose and forgiveness, they will then serve

God with joy. I want to point out that our call is not first to serve.

Many people get that wrong. It's the first and foremost, a call to submit to Him, then be spared, then serve last.

Many have rejected a faulty version of the Christian faith that has this in the wrong order. It is not serve and then be spared.

It is submit, be spared, then serve. So boldly go out to share the reality that there's a distinction with the world around us.

If we believe that there is indeed a distinction in the outcome of the wicked and the righteous, we should be eager to share that righteousness available through Jesus Christ with others.

This morning, we come to communion to celebrate and remember the atoning work of Jesus. We do that each week.

So if you've submitted to Christ and He has spared you from judgment, then come to one of the tables to remember

His body that was broken for you by taking a cracker to symbolize that sacrifice.

And then take a cup of juice to remember His blood that was shed for you. And now let me encourage each and every one of us as individuals to go out from this place this week, speaking the words of God, delighting in the rescue of God, and go with the urgency that comes through recognizing the vast distinction that will be revealed in the destiny of the wicked and the righteous.

Let's pray. Father, I want to thank You for Your grace and Your mercy.

Father, I want to thank You that You are crafting for Yourself a treasured possession. What an amazing, amazing reality.

I pray that You would help us to live in that this week, to recognize that You are a God who is hearing us,

You are a God who is sparing us, and You are a God who will indeed draw distinction in the end. So Father, I pray that You would empower our voices to speak what is true, to bring others along like Malachi did, to glorify

You, to recognize the reverence that is due to Your name, to recognize the great sacrifice that You have made to spare us.

And Father, I pray that You would be sparing more and more as Recast Church gathers together and then is dispersed out to the various places where You have called us to be a light in a dark world.

Father, help us to speak words of truth in love, seasoned with grace.

Help us to wet the thirst of others around us with the way that we speak about You, a great grace that You have given to us.

Help us to speak accurately about You, glorifying

You this week. And Father, as we come to communion, what a great testimony as we're going to get up in a moment and go to these tables and testify that we are weak and fallen bruised sinners that have only been brought in and only been spared based on Your goodness and Your grace.

I pray that You would protect all of us from any pride in coming to that table. Father, if anybody is wrestling with pride in their heart, thinking that they are worthy of this table,

I pray that You would help them to remain in their seats and deal with that as they are. But Father, for those of us who recognize in humility that we are unworthy and that this sacrifice is just simply a reminder that You have spared us.

A great suffering, a great condemnation was over us and You have rescued us.