FBC Morning Light – December 20, 2022

A good Tuesday morning, this Tuesday before Christmas. I hope you're getting into the

Christmas spirit if you're not there already, just rejoicing in the fact that our Savior has come.

Let me ask you this, does the God of love hate?

Is it possible that the God of love would hate? There are some in our world today who have a pretty distorted view of God, and think that God is only lovey -dovey, and he's like a benevolent grandfather who can't say no to anybody, and he just is all gushy and everything else.

That's a perversion, that's a distortion of what God is like. He is a God of love, and he's manifested his love toward us in sending his

Son, our Savior, Jesus. But does the God of love hate?

If you read your Bible, you know he does. In today's Bible reading section in Zechariah 8, this next to the last book in the

Old Testament, you find out that yes, indeed, there are some things that God hates. There are things that he hates to see in the community of his people.

I want you to notice what these are, in verses 16 and 17. I think it's important for us to know that there are things that God hates to see among those who are his people, in any community of his people.

We can talk about that in the relationship to the family, the family unit, but certainly

I think the broader application of this particular passage has to do with the community of his people, like the community of the local church, the community of believers, the community of saints.

What are those things that God hates? Zechariah 8, verse 16.

He says, these are the things you shall do, and then when he gets at the end of the list of four things, he says, for all these are things that I hate, if you don't do them.

What does he tell us to do? Speak each man truth with his neighbor.

God hates dishonesty. God hates untruthfulness. You can think about that and apply that in every relationship of your life.

Dishonesty between partners in a marriage relationship, dishonesty between children and their parents, parents and their children, dishonesty, untruthfulness in your employment situation.

But again, he's speaking here about the community of God's people and how the

Lord hates dishonesty within the congregation of his people.

There should be no room for deception and lying and dishonest dealings in the local church.

Then he hates injustice, because he says the second thing he wants us to do is to give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace.

In our relationships with one another, God wants us to see and wants us to relate to one another in truth, justice, and peace, in our judgments and our evaluations of things.

In the relationships between God's people, he wants us to do justly.

We don't draw conclusions, we don't make judgments about our brothers and sisters in Christ based on distortions of truth, and we don't distort the truth to cause others to have an invalid or an improper assessment or judgment of our brother and sister in Christ.

God wants justice meted out with truthfulness. Also, he says, in peace.

There shouldn't be conflicts in local churches over silly, unnecessary things.

I'm not talking about if somebody comes into the congregation and starts spouting off some heretical idea.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about conflicts that often arise over really silly, petty stuff.

I've been around long enough to know and hear of churches that have split over the most inane stuff.

Carpeting colors, the aesthetic appearance of a building, and things of that nature.

It's just silly. No, God wants to see justice. He hates injustice.

Then he also hates evil scheming. Verse 17 says, let none of you think evil in your heart against your neighbor.

The idea here is that none of us should be plotting and trying to figure out how to cause damage to a brother in Christ.

Does that ever happen in the church? Rhetorical question. Should it?

Absolutely not. God hates it. He also hates false promises.

Verse 17 says, do not love a false oath. Don't love a false oath.

We can be guilty of this in a variety of ways, like when we make a vow to the

Lord that we're going to give a certain amount or a certain consistency of our finances.

We make a vow, we promise the Lord we're going to do that. Then we treat it like a

New Year's resolution. A few weeks after we do it, we let it go. We don't do it. Something else becomes more important.

There's some little gadget we want to buy, or some new phone, or whatever. Then our commitment, our vow, our promise, our oath goes by the wayside.

God hates that. So should we hate false promises? Again, we want to be honest.

We want to be truthful. We want to be faithful and loyal.

We want to be people of our word. Why? Because God loves those things, and he hates the opposite.

Let's bear this in mind. Our Father and our God, we thank you for sharing with us, showing us that which you hate.

It's very clear. You made it very clear. We are without excuse. We can't say, well, we just didn't know.

Well, we do know. Father, I pray with the knowledge of these things right before us, that we would pursue that which you love.

We pray it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right. Have a good rest of your