Pastor Steve Meister: The Love of God

Opening Prayer and the Setting of Malachi’s Message

Privilege to be among you this morning to be asked to minister God's Word. It's been a privilege thus far this weekend to be with you and let me just also extend my gratitude to you for sharing your pastor with us on his summer vacation and it's been such a joy to have Mike minister in our congregation in Sacramento.

We we love him there and appreciate the overflow of the ministry that is your contribution as well and I trust you're encouraged to have pastors like Mike and Steve who love you who love God's Word and want to see it bear fruit among you so it's a privilege to have a small part of that this weekend and what I want to do this morning and this evening is really in some ways continue our reflections and meditations on the greatness and the glories of our God and if you would take your copy of God's Word and turn with me to the prophet Malachi, the prophet Malachi, the end of our Old Testament.

Let's look at Malachi chapter 1 together and let's consider by the reading and preaching of God's Word what we've just prayed and sung of the eternal love of God. So Malachi chapter 1, let me read for us verses 1 to 5.

Malachi 1 verse 1, it is written, the oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you says the Lord but you say how have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob's brother declares the Lord yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.

I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert. If Edom says we are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins the Lord of hosts says they may build but I will tear down and they will be called the wicked country and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.

Your own eyes shall see this and you shall say great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray and ask for his help as we consider his word together. Our Father we would ask that you wouldn't unite our hearts to fear your name.

We would open our eyes to behold the wonderful things of your word and that you would use this jar of clay that would truly hold the treasure of your power and that your word would be the speech of your son addressing his church to build her up in the most holy faith.

We ask our Father that you would do wonderful things in our hearts and lives as we worship you empowered by your spirit. Be with each of us we pray in Christ's name. Amen. We're very practiced at blaming others for what we've done.

Even God. It goes back to our first parents. You remember after Adam and Eve first rebelled against God Adam said to God the woman you put here and then Eve excused herself while the serpent deceived me.

So Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed God. Eve blamed the serpent which God permitted. In his lectures on Genesis the reformer Martin Luther said this humanity's excuse for sin is Lord you have sinned. Now who would ever say such a thing out loud?

Probably none of us but if we're honest often what's beneath our discouragements, our bitterness, even cynicism in our lives is a controversy with God. When our circumstances exasperate us who ordained them?

When our hopes are dashed whose promises set our expectations? So Christian where do you go when you doubt God's love for you? We go to the only one who can resolve it. God himself. And in Malachi God comes to his people to debate and to resolve their doubts about his love.

God’s Unprovoked Love in Malachi 1

Malachi is the last of the Old Testament prophets and he's unique since his book isn't full of visions or theatrics like we might be familiar with in other Old Testament prophets but it's a book of its arguments.

It's organized around six. Six disputes between God and Israel as God is engaging the controversy that's boiling in the hearts of his people and this is occurring during Israel's post-exilic period that means it's the final act of Old Testament revelation so if you're familiar at all with the narrative and Ezra and Nehemiah and prophets like Haggai and Zechariah this is after Israel was exiled to Babylon and the remnant was brought back to the land by the permission of Cyrus of Persia.

That's what's happening here. But here's the thing Israel was back in the land physically but they were still slaves. Both Ezra and Nehemiah in their prayers say that very thing. They're still slaves under foreign nations.

They're still suffering slander even violence from their community. They're persecuted by government officials. They're betrayed by the apostasy of priests and leaders among Israel. They have bad crops.

There's economic downturn. Haggai talks about rate rampant inflation. Stop me if this seems irrelevant. In a word for Israel life was disappointing. Their hopes and expectations were not what they had not coming to pass.

And to make it worse God made promises. God promised that the nation's would be shook and that Jerusalem would be a mountain to which the nation's would stream and seek the Lord. But the temple had been be rebuilt for decades at this point and no one streaming to it.

In fact most of Israel as we if you keep reading in Malachi chapter 1 most of Israel's disdainful and apathetic in worship. Even the priests say it's a low thing to come to God. So the question that was circling on social media and the coffee shops in Malachi's day was verse 2.

How has God loved us. What's going on. So God sent Malachi and one writer captured the message of Malachi like this. He said he sent Malachi to fasten the people's minds on theology. The prophet Malachi comes to bring the being and character of God to God's people and how they are to understand the varied and trying circumstances of life depended entirely first on how they understood God himself to be.

Who God is is how God's people are interpret to interpret what's going on. Do we understand God by how we view our circumstances. Or do we view our circumstances by how we understand God. That's the question that Malachi presses upon Israel repeatedly.

And here in chapter 1 at the outset of the prophecy the Holy Spirit reorients us with God's unfailing love as the lens through which we are to see our lives God's people. And dear Christian that means us in Christ we are to view the circumstances of our lives through the unfailing love of God.

What I want us to do is make three observations about God's love in this paragraph. I want to see God's love is unprovoked. God's love is unmerited. And God's love is undeniable unprovoked unmerited and undeniable.

Let's begin first. And we want to spend most of our time here reflecting on how God's love is unprovoked unprompted to his doubting people. God opens this prophecy in verse 2 with the amazingly simple statement I have loved you that is I have loved you and I am still loving you.

This is the declaration of the Lord Yahweh the great I am the one who is who he is. And God's name reminds us here of that he is the God who is. That means if you've been with us this weekend we have to think very carefully about what is meant by his love now that would probably sound very absurd to most people especially Christians isn't God's love self-evident.

I mean if we know anything we know about the love of God if people know anything about Christianity it's they know that God loves. But we all know that a term like love it's almost meaningless apart from the relationship in which it's used.

I love my wife I love my children. I love my church. I love the state of California in which I've been born and raised. I love double doubles with grilled onions and mustard instead of the spread in and out one of the glories of California.

Now I will use love in any one of these statements. And you know intuitively that I do not mean the same thing by how I use love. We know intuitively that love is defined by the nature of the lover and the beloved.

We also know that confusion about love is very deep in our culture today because it's usually understood to be an uncritical affirmation to love is to accept without qualification as a sentiment or a sympathy.

And we know that is presented today almost as a truism. Love is love as though that is the most basic fact of reality and must be understood and can't be defined by something or someone else. But when the Lord the I am the one who is who he is without change circumference or containment in what he's created when he declares I love it must be a love that is consistent with who he is as the lover.

What we're seeing here is why doctrines like divine simplicity matter. Now God is simple. We don't mean by that he's easier comprehensible. We mean that God is simple like simple syrup is simple. It's just sugar.

It doesn't have a lot of other ingredients. God's not made up of ingredients. He's uncomposed. He's without parts or principles or things like love. Love is not more basic than God. Love is not an ingredient that makes God God.

It's not something he has as though he could lose it or it could be isolated or taken from him. In fact what does scripture tell us in first John for God is love. Our Dutch friend will said this. The love of God by definition is the loving God himself.

God is love. It's who he is. It's his essence. It's his very being. It's not a principle outside of him. There's nothing outside of God. It's not something before him. There's nothing before God. Before creation was just God and now we have God and not God.

And God is love now. What this means. Then when God says I have loved you. God's love must have an infinite distinction between how we love for us. We love in response to what we find lovable. Love is provoked out of us.

We are made to love. We are caused to love. We are brought to love. We are drawn to serve our beloved and to gain what we find lovely in our beloved. I will reschedule a meeting and relocate myself to gain a double-double for lunch.

It took me two years to get my wife to agree to lower her standards and marry me. We love in response to gain what we find lovely. Love is prompted provoked stirred up drawn out of us. We are made to love.

Now think about God. Infinite eternal self-sufficient. Does God need anything. No. And who's given to him that he might be repaid. Scripture asks. Well no one. God is the one from whom and for whom and to whom are all things.

Well that must mean then that love is not a response for God to gain what he lacks because God lacks nothing but it must be a will for him to give what is good. God's love is his sovereign and free and unprovoked will to act for the good of his beloved unprovoked by his beloved.

This makes sense of who God is as love and it also makes sense of who we are as his beloved. God refers here in verse 2 to Asa and Jacob. They were Isaac's twin sons. What distinguished them or made one more lovely in the eyes of God than the other.

Nothing. What distinguishes us or makes us lovely in the eyes of the perfect infinitely bless God. This is how Moses earlier in Israel's history explained God's love to Israel. In Deuteronomy 7 verse 7 and 8 we read this.

It was not because you were more in number than any any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you. For you are the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your father's.

Now I want us to catch two things there in Deuteronomy 7. God set his love on you and chose you. Love is parallel to God's choice his electing grace. God set his love on you and chose you. But secondly did you catch the flow of the statement God set his love on you because the Lord loves you.

Wait a minute. Moses come again. God loves me because he loves me. Exactly what is that. Well that dear finite creature. As far is as far as you're going to penetrate into the infinite mind and eternal will of God.

Why does God love you. Because he loves you. He is love. God loves by choosing to set his love on his people and beloved. The fact of unprovoked love is the reality by which God's people are called to interpret their reality.

And that ought to have come to mind to Israel when God said simply in verse 2 I love you. But how does spiritual apathy and cynicism. Reply first to prove it. How have you loved us. In what ways do we see this love in our lives.

Their view of life at this point in Israel with unmet expectations full of disappointments. And here they're claiming no responsibility for their circumstances and they become reasons in their minds to discount the fact that God had ever loved them.

So God returns here in verse 2 to some basic facts of sovereign grace is unprovoked covenant to love again. Esau and Jacob were Isaac's twin sons. Isaac was the son of Abraham the one through whom which God promised to bring blessing to the world.

Esau was named first because he was the firstborn. And Esau would have inherited the birthright and been the line of which that blessing would have come. But before they were born God told Rebecca their mother.

Genesis 25 the older shall serve the younger. God set his love on Jacob who became Israel. In verse 3 says he hated or passed over Esau. Now we don't want to misunderstand the language. Here we will remember the covenantal context.

Love and hate don't refer to sentiment or malice in God or animosity. These terms were common in ancient Near Eastern covenants and in Hebrew idiom. And in the language of the Bible they refer to choices to choosing.

Remember the parallel we just heard in Deuteronomy 7 verse 7. I loved you and chose you. Jesus in Luke 14 verse 26 said this. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters.

Yes and even his own life he cannot be my disciple. That was Jesus calling us to sin and violate the fifth commandment and dishonor our parents. Now he's using the language of hatred to refer to choice as if to say if you have to choose between me and your family you choose me every time before Esau was born and before Esau had done anything by which he might be preferred preferred or or given preference by God or Isaac.

God chose Jacob to be the line through which his covenantal promises would descend. Now the Edomites the line that came from Esau were included in the promise of the new covenant in Christ but not in the old.

So at this point in history what had Israel. God's people neglected. They were God's people. They had his love set on him. God had set his covenantal love on them. They'd received his promises. And even though Israel had the same nearness to Abraham as Edom God chose them unprovoked by anything in them.

Now most Christians are probably familiar with this language not from Malachi but from how the Apostle Paul uses it in the book of Romans chapter 9. And in verse 13 Paul refers here to Malachi chapter 1 to answer a question about the new covenant and to explain that God's purpose of election might continue not because of works but because of him who calls.

Paul says God's love is the purpose of his sovereign will unprompted unprovoked by his beloved. Now I'm assuming we all know that election is a controverted doctrine but every Christian must know it because it is the basis of our assurance of God's love.

The doctrine of election means most basically that God saved us by grace alone. None of our works prompted God to respond as though we deserve it not a one. It's all by grace. And to reinforce that fact God reveals that he chose his people before creation.

In Ephesians chapter 1 verses 4 and 5 God says he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

Do you notice God gives in Ephesians the same answer to us as he gave Israel in the old covenant. God loves us because he loves us. It was the purpose of his will. In love God predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.

Why. Because it's the purpose of his will. Why does God love you dear Christian. Because he wants to period. He sets on his love on you. And the kindness of his will from before the ages began. Matthew Henry said he fetched the reason of his love purely from himself.

God loves us because he loves us. He chose us. Now many Christians outside the reformed tradition will say that God chose based on what he foresaw in people and what they would do. And he chose those whom he knew would choose him.

But this overturns all the language of the Bible. God chose Jacob before he or Esau were born not because of works even foreseen works. And even the language of no is the sense of relational knowing. And the book of Genesis were caught.

War said that Adam knew his wife that wasn't knowing information that was love to foreknow is to for love. And if the creator of all things in eternity for knows he doesn't passively recognize what he has no part in.

He's the creator and sustainer of all things. And so he is actively bringing this distinction into existence by his sovereign creative power. But also to reject this would neglect that apart from God's sovereign love creating love in us no one would ever choose him.

If you know anything about Jacob and his story in Genesis there's not a whole lot lovable about him. Is there. He was deceitful he was conniving. He ripped his own family apart with favoritism and partiality.

And who among us with any shred of honesty could stand up and say obviously God chose me because he saw what stellar qualities were going to come to pass in my life. What do we have. The Bible says that we have not received nothing.

Now folks remember Martin Luther for famously nailing the 95 theses on the castle church door of Wittenberg. But I think the most profound sentence that Luther ever wrote is not in the 95 theses but actually comes later in the Heidelberg disputation thesis 28.

I know what you're thinking. I was just reading that but mark that the Luther's Heidelberg disputation thesis 28 Luther wrote this. The love of God does not find but creates that which is pleasing to it.

The love of God does not find but creates that which is pleasing to it. God's love gives what is good to the beloved it creates loveliness. It does not find it. And without the creative love of God what would ever come from us in faith hope and love toward him.

Augustine said we love God through God. We love God because of God. His spirit shed his love abroad in our hearts. Now of course God's distinguishing electing love raises questions. Is it fair that God doesn't choose everyone.

Well remember that all are guilty before God and all of us deserve by nature his justice. So if some are shown undeserved favor and love while others receive the justice they deserve God has not been unjust to anyone.

No one is judged because they are on elect unloved. They're judged because they're guilty as sinners. We also must keep God's electing love in its proper parameters our confession. The second London confession chapter 3 paragraph 7 gives some very wise reminders that this is a high mystery and it is to be handled with special prudence.

That means it is for our assurance our humility and our consolation in Christ not for speculations into what is incomprehensible for us in the eternal being of God. And that brings me to ask you friend if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian what are you to gain from learning about God's sovereign love.

There's a ton but I'd encourage you to think about at least two aspects. First it means that love is real. Love is real. The naturalistic accounting of life that our culture assumes pure materialism evolutionary theory denies what is patently self evident in front of our face love.

There is no accounting for love in the materialist account of the universe. Love is a rational in a world that supposedly designed by the survival of the fittest it's contrary to evolution. It's actually working against it.

This phenomenon we label love. But if God is the one from whom all things are if he is love and that means love is real. It's not a delusion. It's not a creative phenomenon. We're not deceived when we when we perceive love to be real it comes from God and it is for God we are to know and understand love.

And secondly not only is love real but in ourselves we have no hope to generate love for God from ourself. Scripture describes us as alienated and hostile. We cannot meet the law of love for God and love him with all our heart soul mind and strength.

Not a one of us has done it not me not anyone else. But God is willing and we see God is able to create love in the lives of helpless sinners. And the testimony of every Christian is that by turning to the Lord Jesus Christ and believing in him all of God's promises are ours in Christ and we discover that we have come to trust and love Jesus because God has loved us before the world was.

God's love is creative to make in us the beginning and to recreate us in the new beginning in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not working our way into God's love. Christians have God's love because of his grace and kindness and love.

So dear friend if you're not a Christian the question before you this morning is not to try to divine the eternal mind of God and figure out his eternal purpose. Your call this morning is to recognize your sin that you have not loved your God as you ought and to see his provision in the Lord Jesus Christ and to trust him and to rely on him and to receive the love of God revealed in Christ and Christian that brings us to reflect that God reveals his love for us for our comfort and our assurance.

Assurance is not within us as much as is within God. Infinite immutable free. His love is our hope. Your hardest loss made this remark about God's love. The best proof that God will never cease to love us lies in the fact that he never began.

You could think about that for a week. When did God begin to love you. It's eternal love. There is no beginning to it. Dear Christian God's love for you has no beginning therefore it will have no end.

It is the fact of his love that it is eternal and it will never change that it must only be how he forms and loves us to come into relation to him. And that's what God tells Israel next. I want to see secondly in verses 3 and 4 that God's love is unmerited.

God’s Unmerited Covenant Discipline

It's unmerited. Esau demonstrated his godless nature by despising his own birthright for a meal and his descendants. Edom became one of Israel's most fiercest opponents in Israel's history. And we're we're told in the Old Testament the backdrop to this that Edom rejoiced when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem.

They rejoiced in their sorrow and destruction. But what stands out in the language here of verse 3 laid waste left as jackals of the desert. These are familiar. It was taken from the prophets about Jerusalem's own judgment.

In Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 11 we read. I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins a lair of jackals. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation. Or you could translate that laid waste as it is here.

In other words Edom is going to receive the justice they deserve just as Israel did. But there's a very important difference. Verse 4. If they say we will rebuild the Lord says I will tear down. Edom's judgment will be permanent.

If Edom says they will rebuild on the assurance of the Lord of hosts the God who commands armies and angels he will tear it down. And they will be called the wicked country subject to the Lord's judgment forever.

You see the distinction the Lord is making between Edom and Israel and pointing out to them Edom and Israel were both guilty of idolatry and sin. Israel like Edom was made from one man. Israel also served other gods.

That's why they were sent into exile. Both merited God's judgment. Edom received it. God's unmerited grace rescued Israel from judgment. Have you ever met an Edomite. One famed archaeologist has written this.

No ancient people except Israel have ever been restored to its native land after such a clean break. Israel here restored to their land. After such a clean break they were restored to their land just as God promised all around them.

These people asking how have you loved us. All around are signs of faithfulness. You're here you're still in the land. Was it the fullness of the messianic promises. No but the temple was rebuilt the priesthood was restored.

There was a city being walled by by Nehemiah. Love as we've already said is defined primarily by relationship. If I said to you Mike sliced me open with a knife you might be alarmed if you thought it was one of your pastors.

But if I told you well Mike was actually the name of my surgeon relieving my illness you would say oh well that act was good not harmful. The fact of God's covenant love means that God's people and their relationship have changed with God which changes everything about how they're to view everything in their life.

Israel was not under an angry judgment. Here they were under covenant discipline. They were cursed with the curses of the Mosaic Covenant in order to provoke them to repentance and to faith and to restoration.

Remember Proverbs 3 verse 12. The Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father the son in whom he delights. It's exactly what Israel faced. They were looking at looking at unpleasant discipline not undeserved favor.

As those who are not in the household they were being treated as sons. This reminds us of how our justification in Christ being made right by God through faith in Christ has changed everything about how we are to view life as Christians.

In Romans 5 it is because verse 1 we have peace with God that Paul goes on to say we can rejoice in our sufferings knowing what they produce endurance and character and hope because God's love has been poured to our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

God is loving us in difficult circumstances and hardships. If you're a Christian never mean judgment. Because judgment has been satisfied in Christ and we've been justified in him we have peace with God.

That must mean that hardships are just fatherly discipline formative corrective forming us into the image of his son like a good father. Remember Hebrews 12. Verse 7 is for discipline that you have to endure.

God is treating you as sons. When God loves he gives what is good what is the greatest good that God could ever give himself. God who is love loves us not in a distant act but he gives himself to those whom he loves.

God orchestrates all things in our life to conform us into the image of his beloved son and to make us like him. And to give us himself even our suffering is never the hand of a harsh judge. If you're a Christian it is a loving father forming you into his beloved to make you like him to love enjoy him as he created us to.

Scripture says that fathers who spare the rod hate their sons. But those who love them are diligent to discipline. If earthly fathers know how to give what is good will God not give even more. Of course God had loved them.

He was in the middle of loving them and forming them and to help them. God reminds us thirdly that his love is undeniable. It's undeniable. Verse 5 your own eyes shall see this. The Lord promises to leave proof of his love.

Their eyes will see the destruction of Edom and they will proclaim God's greatness over Israel. Now it's just that's how we ought to understand it. Many translations say beyond as it is here it's better to say over the borders of Israel that is over the nation of Israel.

You will see the distinguishing love of God over his people. We will see God's distinguishing love as Edom is judged in justice while Israel is restored in grace. God says I will prove my love before your eyes.

It will be undeniable. You will see others fall in judgment while you remain as grace. God made his name to dwell among Israel and love them by making them his people and giving them his presence. He restored their temple in Jerusalem while Edom was ended in judgment and God was among Israel.

God proved his love by giving his presence to his people. And he did so in order to prove it in the fulfillment of all that it was pointing toward because one day God himself would walk around that temple and he would declare in John to destroy this temple.

And in three days I will raise it up. And John tells us that Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. The Lord Jesus could not have done that. In a ziggurat in Babylon God had proven his love to Israel so that he could prove his love to people from every tribe tongue people and nation.

Romans 5 8 God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. In this is love. Not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins first.

John 4 10 God has demonstrated has made his love undeniable in the work of his beloved son the Lord Jesus and his death on the cross and rising for the salvation of his people. One theologian said that propitiation.

God's satisfaction of his justice upon the cross of the Lord Jesus proves love. Love is the chief outshining of supreme splendor. God loves by giving by giving to those he's chosen to love. And God has given his son to create in us love that we would never know otherwise that we would gain the greatest good in existence God himself and that we would love and enjoy him and have joy in his love forever.

Beloved. You can never answer the question does God love me. Apart from the resounding yes in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our own eyes seen it it's been declared to us yes. God loves you. Look at the cross of the Lord Jesus and the Savior in your place.

The risen Savior. Who is your justification. Yes he loves us. He sent his son in love. The Puritan John Owen made this remark about the father's love. He said eminently. The father himself loves you. Resolve of that that you may hold communion with him in it and be no more troubled about it.

Then Owen goes on to say this. You can no way more trouble or burden God then by your unkindness in not believing it. Christian what is the greatest unkindness that you and I can do to God. It's not believe that he loves us.

The greatest unkindness we ever do to God is not believe that he loves us. His love is undeniable. It was unmerited and totally unprovoked. He loves us and he's proven it in the Lord Jesus Christ. We use telescopes to locate ourselves properly in the universe to bring distant objects into focus.

But if you look through the wrong end of a telescope if you've ever done that it actually distorts reality and things that are nearer are pushed pushed farther away to bring our life into clarity. God has revealed his eternal and mutable love and that is the telescope by which we find our place in his universe.

But we have to look through the right end. If we look through the lens of a hard marriage disappointing children bad economy poor health a worse government a lame job. We start charging God with failing to love.

So what God does kindly in his word as he does here in Malachi 1 is he flips the telescope right way around again to remind us dear Christian you're mine I love you. God has loved you and he will love you till the end.

Amen. Let's pray our father. We thank you for what you've revealed of what is ultimately incomprehensible to us your eternal love. And we will never tire of praising or exalting in you even into eternity itself for the riches of your grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus the undeniable fruit and proof of your love.

Help us our father to rejoice in the midst of circumstances you have ordained for our ultimate good even when they are not good that we might rest in your love for us and know you must be shaping us to be like your son and to have greater capacity to enjoy you and your love forever.

Help us our father to rest in this love and to have greater courage and boldness to declare it to others that they too like us might know your love in Christ and rest in him we pray this in his high and holy name.

With thanks.