THE FAITHFUL LOVE OF GOD - Malachi 1:2-5

It's thanks to the Lord, amen. ♪

Endures forever ♪ For he is good ♪ He is above all things ♪

His love endures forever ♪ Sing praise ♪

Sing praise ♪ Now stretched on ♪

His love endures forever ♪ That's been reborn ♪

His love endures forever ♪ Sing praise ♪

Sing praise ♪ Sing praise ♪

Sing praise Sing forever. ♪ God is faithful ♪

God is strong ♪ The setting sun ♪

His love endures forever ♪ And by the grace of God ♪

We will carry on ♪ His love endures forever ♪

Sing praise Sing praise. ♪ Sing praise ♪

Sing praise Sing out for everybody. ♪

His faithful ♪ He sings again ♪

Sing praise ♪ Sing praise

Sing out forever. ♪ For us, forever

One more time. ♪ For everybody, He's faithful Turned it the wrong way.

Whoops. Good morning, everybody. We're gonna have the responsive reading, the call to worship this morning.

And this is a time when we talk to God, actually. I still got a little ring. Where we reply to Him, where we tell

Him how we feel about God and worship. So join in me. This is from Psalm 136, verses one through nine.

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. Thanks to the

God of gods. Give thanks to the

Lord of lords. To Him who by understanding made the heavens.

To Him who spread out the earth above the waters. To Him who made the great lights.

The sun to rule over the day. The moon and stars to rule over the night.

And all the people said, amen. Yes. So prayer of adoration.

If you'd please join me in prayer. Our heavenly

Father, we are so in awe of the differences between what we deserve and what

You have given us, Lord. We're in awe of what we are now versus what we were in the absence of Your mercy and Your grace.

We were bound for the absence of the understanding of Your love for us. However, in Your infinite wisdom and purpose,

You loved us first. That Your divine love could be poured out on such a sinner is beyond our comprehension, beyond our understanding.

For all the days of our lives, we will lift up Your name and praise Your works on earth and in our lives.

We know of Your great works and we shout with full knowledge, great is the

Lord in all the earth. Amen. ♪

He's joined with His faithfulness ♪ ♪

The seed of the victim, the Savior has risen ♪ ♪

The Spirit has come to bring us into the rest ♪ ♪

The love of listening to the light ♪ ♪

The sons and the daughters are loved at a price ♪ ♪ Our God has made us sinners forever ♪

We are the people. ♪ Oh, we are handsome and at such a price ♪ ♪

This is love, oh, this is love ♪ ♪

Yes, the love is heading seeds, our sin and our guilt ♪ ♪

God is grace that wash it away ♪ ♪

Love that is flowing in crimson tide ♪ ♪

That store you may be today, sing grace, grace ♪ ♪

Grace, grace, grace, grace that will part us ♪ ♪

Grace that is colorless, infinite, matchless grace ♪ ♪

Freely bestowed on a lean to see

His face ♪ ♪ Will you this moment His grace receive?

♪ ♪ Grace, grace, grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within ♪ ♪

Grace, grace, grace, grace that is greater than all ♪

Today's scripture reading comes from John's first epistle, chapter four, verses seven through 12.

And if you haven't read this verse, this chapter four, it gives such a good meaning and instruction in what love is and how we should love our brothers.

It begins with, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows

God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only

Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 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.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected.

Let us pray. It's our prayer of confession and assurance to our Lord and Savior. Lord, we cry out to You.

Hear our voice as we ask, as we seek Your mercy.

We confess our iniquities, our sins, our shortcomings to You with the sure knowledge of Your forgiveness based on the love and work of Your Son, Jesus Christ.

We seek strength and understanding that we may live holy lives, lives that bring honor and glory to Your name.

We wait on You, Father. We wait on You, Lord Jesus Christ. We wait on You, Holy Spirit, in full hope of the steadfast love

You have for us in which that alone is redemption. Amen.

Christ will hold me fast when the tempter would prevail.

He will keep my whole life's fearful path for my love is soft and cold.

My Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.

He saves are His delight. Christ will hold me fast.

Precious in His holy sight. He will hold me fast.

My promises shall last. Bought by Him at such a cost.

My Savior loves me so.

He will hold me fast. Christ will hold me fast.

Justice has been satisfied. He will hold me fast.

Praise with Him to endless life. Yes, He will hold me fast.

He will keep my whole life's fearful path for my love is soft and cold.

My Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.

My Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.

My Savior loves me so. I want to just blow the roof off this place this morning singing praises to our almighty

God. Amen. Let's sing it out. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy.

Our song shall rise to Thee. Yes. Holy, holy.

Merciful and intercess.

Blessed Trinity. Holy, holy.

The darkness hide Thee. Though the eye of sinful man

Thy glory may not see. There is none beside perfect in power.

Holy in sky and sea.

Merciful and in three.

God in three persons.

Blessed Trinity. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise

You this morning. Lord, we thank You so much for this opportunity that we have to come together here in this corporate gathering of saints,

Lord, and sing praise and worship to You and sing how holy You truly are.

I praise You, Lord, for my salvation this morning. I thank You. Lord, I pray this morning as we continue this service,

Lord, I pray that You would just be with Pastor Nathan, Lord, just bless him, give him the words to speak this morning,

Lord, and to preach boldly truths to us, Lord. And I just pray that You would clear out any distraction,

Lord, open our hearts, open our ears, Lord. Lord, I pray that You would bless this offering this morning,

Lord, as we praise You and worship You through giving. We ask all these things in Jesus' precious and holy name, amen.

As the guys are still coming through with the offering plates, go ahead and open up your copy of God's word to the

Old Testament book of Malachi. We're in week two of our study through this

Old Testament minor prophet. If you don't know where Malachi is, go to the beginning of the

New Testament, Matthew, and then jump back into the Old Testament, and there you are. It's the very last book in the

Old Testament, Malachi. And we're going to be there in chapter one, and we're going to look at the first five verses.

Last week, we saw an introduction. We got to look at verse one, but let's start reading there in verse one on through the fifth verse here of Malachi's book.

He says, the oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi, I have loved you, says the

Lord. Now, 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 reading of God's word,

God's holy inspired perfect word. So please bow with me once again.

Let's go to the Lord and seek help in understanding and clearly applying his clear, wonderful, precise truth.

Dear Heavenly Father, we bow before you once again today. We thank you that we've gotten to worship you.

We've been able to sing of your love. We've been able to sing of how that love is applied and holding us fast.

We've been able to sing of your holiness that sets you apart. You are altogether separate from your creation.

But then showing us your love by entering into your creation, redeeming us, buying us back.

Father, we pray this morning that as we have looked at your word so far, that as we proclaim your word from here forward,

God, I pray that it would be an accurate summary of your truth, and that it would penetrate into our hearts and minds.

Father, give me boldness.

Father, give me clarity of thought. Father, allow those that are here this morning to hear the truth without distraction, and that it would be then applied to our lives, that you would awaken our souls to your great love, to your goodness, your kindness in our lives,

Father. Lord, bring about revival in our hearts. God, we ask this morning that you would awaken our spirits to the truth, that we would be hungry for the truth, that we have, many of us have already tasted and seen that you are good,

Lord, but that you would use this word this morning to refresh our souls. We thank you for it.

Be honored in our worship through preaching today, God. In Christ's name, amen. Well, last week,

I gave you a flyover, really, view of this book of Malachi, an introduction and a bit of a historical context of this

Old Testament minor prophet wherein we introduced to you this little -known prophet

Malachi and the state of the people of Israel during Malachi's time and how they had come out of exile once again, like the people of Israel find themselves in and out, in and out, and they've come out of exile.

They've seen the rebuilding of the temple that had been destroyed. However, they've yet to experience what the prophets

Haggai and Zechariah had told them would happen. They had encouraged them, remember, to build the temple.

Let's rebuild. Let's go back and let's rebuild the temple. And when we do, they had encouraged the people when they did that, once again, to experience prosperity, expansion, peace, and then most importantly, the presence of God returning to the temple where he would dwell with the people.

Essentially, as we said, the covenant blessings over the nation. And here they are with a rebuilt temple.

It's happened. But instead, they find themselves struggling economically, obtaining only a fraction of their lands that had been promised to them.

Judah is no longer even a nation. They no longer even have a Davidic king there in Israel.

And worst of all, the presence of God has not returned to the temple, as they thought.

Yet, even in the midst of all of this, they are still going through the motions.

They're carrying out the temple sacrifices, as we saw last week. They are following through with all these rituals that had been passed down to them from the law of Moses and then on to these traditions as a people, all the while forgetting what those sacrifices and rituals were pointing to.

They're pointing to the faithful promises of God. They had forgotten that. And subsequently, they had fallen into spiritual apathy, right?

Into a spiritual coldness, a spiritual indifference. They had forgotten about the goodness of God.

And this led them to rob God through their tithes.

They were following through with the rituals and the traditions and all of that stuff, but they were only halfway doing it because their heart wasn't with them.

And they were withholding their tithes from God the way they should. They would bring their sickly leftover animals for sacrifice.

They treated their covenant with God and following their covenant with their wives with just reckless abandonment, to not pursue justice.

They were blaming God for not being just and not dealing with the wicked out there, but they themselves were not living in a life of justice and carrying out justice among their people.

Essentially, they're going through the motions of religiosity. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Just going through the motions of, well, here's my checklist. This is just what we do.

This is just how we live. These are the things that we go through. Today, we do that.

Many of us grew up here in the South, so we grew up going to church. This is what you did. It's something that's habit now, and you go to church.

You give a little money to the church. You do all the seemingly right things, yet here they are living their lives no different from the pagan nations.

They may have looked different on the outside at some level, but they were living just as wickedly as those without God.

And so God, what does he do? He sends a messenger, as he always does. Praise God he doesn't leave us to ourselves in those moments.

He sends a messenger, Malachi. Remember, that's what his name is, my messenger. And he starts off with God just sends

Malachi. He comes in. He walks over to the people, and what does he do? He says, Thus saith the

Lord, what are you idiots doing? Do better, be better, or I'm going to wipe you out.

I've told you what to do. I've given you the law of Moses. I've given you the rules and the regulations.

I've told you how you're supposed to live, and you keep failing me time and time again.

Let's be honest for a second. That's how we think God should have responded, isn't it? We see the people of Israel.

Come on, guys. You ever read the Old Testament? You're like, come on. The people of Israel, like they're delivered out of Egypt, and then they immediately in the desert start building a golden calf.

And you go, come on, guys. You guys deserve God to just a swift kick.

He's just got to be done with you. And if we're totally honest with ourselves, I don't know if you're like me, that's how

I often feel and expect God to respond to me. Whenever I fall into spiritual apathy, whenever I fall into sin,

I feel like God should respond to me like, you know what, Nathan? I'm done.

I gave you chance after chance. I'm kind of sick of this. I've given you everything you need for life and godliness.

You're not even paying attention to it. Because you know inside, when you fall into that, that our hearts haven't been with him.

We may have carried out the motions. I showed up to church. I may even have showed up and preached one Sunday.

I showed up to church. I did the motions, but my heart isn't with him. I've dishonored him with my thoughts and my actions and my speech.

I've dishonored him in how I've treated other image bearers. I've dishonored him in how I've restrained what is already his, thinking that it's mine.

I've dishonored him in so many ways, and now I'm just waiting for God to smite me. You ever felt like that?

Maybe I'm the only one. To be like, you know what, Nathan?

I'm done. I've given you chance after chance. But that's not how he starts off, thank goodness with us, but particularly here in our text.

That's not how he starts off in Malachi, is it? What does he do? He sends a messenger into this people that is just total spiritual apathy.

They've been robbing him. They've been giving him the leftover animals for sacrifice. They've been cheating on their wives and going and marrying foreign women.

They've been just denouncing the covenant with him altogether through their lifestyle, and God sends

Malachi, my messenger, in, and how does he start? He says, I have loved you. It's different than how we think he should approach us.

By the way, this phrase is not in the past tense, as it seems. This is in a present, ongoing, active tense.

What this means is God is saying, I have loved you. I still love you, and I will continue to love you because my love for you is everlasting and unchanging.

God's going to call them to right living. He's going to call them to the obedience to his commands.

He doesn't just leave them in their disobedience and in their sin. He disciplines them. But here's what we miss about that discipline so often.

It always begins with and flows from his perfect, everlasting, faithful love.

You know, in the New Testament, John told us over in 1 John 4, 19, you know the passage. He says, we love because he first loved us.

There is no creation without his love. None of this exists without his love.

And there's certainly no child of God. None of us in here are children of God without his love.

The scripture says that God is love. It doesn't say he does love, which it does, but that's not the text that I'm talking about.

It doesn't just mean that he does love. It doesn't mean that he just expresses his love.

It means that it's who he is. It's an attribute of God. God is love, and we only know that love because of who he is.

And so creation was spoken into existence by the God who is love.

Think about that for a second. Everything, everything that we are, everything that we've seen, everything that we know, all of reality around us in a physical sense is because God is love.

We forget that sometimes. We reform people, we like to focus on the wrath of God, which we should.

But we can't neglect this major key element of who God is. God had created this world because he is love.

And when the creature, man, subjected that creation to futility and death through his act of disobedience, the

God of love did not wipe them out and start over. You ever wondered why he didn't just do that?

Why didn't he just wipe them out? He told Adam and Eve, he said, you eat of that fruit, that day you shall surely die.

No, he had a perfect plan. There's a reason he did not. He had a plan to display his faithful love to the whole of creation.

Plan that was in the heart of the triune God from eternity past. Before you, before me, before this, before the world, before space, before the universe, there was

God the Father, there was God the Son, and there was God the Holy Spirit in perfect union. And they made a covenant with themselves.

We will create and we will redeem the glory of God.

And it all stemmed from the fact that it's because his love had been set upon his elect.

Even before that creation, we learned that in Ephesians, right? You remember Ephesians 1 and verses 4 through 6?

Even as he chose us in him, chose who? Believers, the saints, in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

And here it is, in love, he predestined us for adoption. It's his love.

And why? To the praise of his glorious grace. It's beautiful.

When you see that grand big picture that God had an elect from every tribe, nation, and tongue that he had said,

I love, I have loved, I will love, and I will continue to love, and that will never end, and I will redeem them.

And even though sin had enslaved us, and certain death was imminent upon each one of us, his love was sure.

He promised deliverance all the way back in Genesis chapter 3. There, after the fall, he had shown us a shadow, a little bitty glimpse of the fact that his grand plan was going to cover all of this.

And showing that faithful promise through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, maintaining and keeping a people, the people of Israel that we're reading about today, with his law and his precepts, to ensure the arrival of that Messiah.

I love Romans 5, 6. It says, for a while we were still weak.

That phrasing, at the right time. What time? At the perfect time, his time. The exact moment that the triune

God had planned before the creation of the whole of the universe to set out and accomplish, he was going to accomplish, and he was using the people of Israel to carry that out.

God's love, his perfect love, was seen in his perfect timing. A couple verses after that one in Romans 5, it says, but God shows his love for us.

And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It's all stemming from his love.

God never starts with do better, be better. He never starts with get your act together.

You've heard it before when you go to church. Hopefully, if you've gone to a gospel preaching church. You don't have to get all of your ducks in a row and get your life cleaned up before you come to Christ.

It doesn't work like that. That's not how God works. And it's true. God never asks that.

God never says, hey, you, clean up your act, because if you could clean up your act, you wouldn't need Jesus. But in the perfect time, while we were still sinners, while we were still rebels to his will, he starts with,

I have loved you. And I have shown my love by sending my son to take the blow of death for you.

That's different than religion, isn't it? Religion is do better, be better.

Figure out how to make yourself right with the creator. And God says, child, you're not capable of that.

You will always reject me. You will always hate me. You will always, always, always run to sin because you're enslaved to it.

You're enslaved to it. You purchased us from the wrath.

God says, I have purchased you from my wrath and to my mercy. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

And whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. God's love upon his people, that's where it all starts.

It's where it all sets. And it's where it all ends. Love. Some of you in here have yet to experience that love.

I'm sure of it. We come into church and we think, well, everybody here is a Christian. Everybody here has been purchased by the blood of Christ.

That is not necessarily the case. Maybe some young children who are not yet in the faith, maybe an adult in here that thinks that they've been walking through all of the religiosity.

They've been carrying out all of the things. They say, I go to church. I read my Bible. I pray. I do all the things.

I still, there's a spiritual apathy. There's an indifference towards God. Maybe you've not experienced that love.

Well, I would implore you to repent and believe, to lay down your burden of self -righteousness and receive the blessing of his righteousness.

Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that he is Lord, because today is the day of salvation.

Amen. Today is the day. Call upon him while he may be found.

Plead with him that he would save you. Confess, I am broken.

I am incapable. I do no good. I do nothing right.

You did everything. I need that righteousness to cloak and clothe me before the presence of God and rest and trust.

Well, praise God that many of us in here have already tasted and seen that the Lord is good in that way.

Yet, like the faithful remnant within Israel, those that Malachi is speaking to from God that are actually in the faith, that are part of physical, visible

Israel in this time, like those faithful remnant, circumstances and the remaining flesh have caused you to lose sight of his great love for you.

You feel it? Difficulty?

Maybe financial struggles. Maybe prosperity.

Maybe life is great for you, but in the midst of it, you feel a spiritual indifference.

Whatever the circumstance is, like the remnant there in Israel, God is here today saying, because these are

God's words for God's people, right? I don't know about you, but that's good for my soul, because I so often, as I said,

I feel like there's no way God could love me right now. Sometimes I go, well, maybe he does.

Maybe he's right. Maybe he always loves me and his love is for me everlasting. There's no way he likes me. There's no way he's happy with me.

But in my weakness, his strength is seen because it's not my strength.

It's not my ability to do the right thing. It's his love.

And he says, Nathan, I have loved you. Saint, child,

I have loved you. And even still we are blinded by our circumstances in this present darkness.

They're difficult, aren't they? It's difficult when you suffer loss. Death is unnatural.

I say that all the time. When you suffer the loss of a loved one, it is so unnatural.

It is not the circle of life. It is not as it should be, and it is not as it will be. And you feel the pain of it.

You suffer. Maybe fear of the future. Many of us in here, we've grown up in a comfortable country to where we've had so many freedoms, and everybody seems to be somewhat morally upright at some level, and everything seems to be changing at a breakneck speed.

And we're like, ah, I'm fearful. What kind of world are my kids going to grow up in?

Are they going to lose all their freedoms? Are they going to be financially struggling? Are they going to be in poverty?

Are they going to struggle this way? Are they going to be under the hand of an evil government?

Like, what's going to happen? You're fearful. Maybe suffering broken relationships, pain, sickness, all that comes with this present darkness.

And then we, like them, respond with, look at what they say. How have you loved us?

Don't give me that holy look. You know you've felt like this before. You may not have said those words.

Actually, I don't even know if the people of Israel actually said this or if this is God speaking through Malachi, responding because he knows their hearts, because you know good and well that's in your heart at some level.

When you've gone through loss or suffering or your children are wayward or whatever's going on in your circumstances and you feel a spiritual apathy, you know there are times where you know you hear

God. God says, I love you, and you say, well, how have you loved me? I've been here serving you.

I'm on the greeter's team. I serve in the nursery. And you treat me like this?

You're not going to say it in those words, but that's what your heart feels if you're being honest. This is where the people of Israel are in this moment so that he could, in his love, once again, point them back to the overwhelming evidence and faithfulness of his love.

We lose sight of his love. We intellectually know it, and then we question it because of circumstances.

And sometimes God wants to expose that in our hearts. He wants to show you.

You think everything's fine. You're going through the motions. You're doing all the right things, but yet you just say, it's cold.

And then God just brings you to the end of it, and he never leaves you to yourself because he chastens those that he loves.

He's going to expose your heart, and here he is. He's showing you that you are like Israel saying, how have you loved us?

So that he could respond. Look at what he says in the next part of verse 2. It's not

Esau, Jacob's brother, declares the Lord. Yet I have loved

Jacob. Oh, but Esau, I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.

Oh, if Edom says, we are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins, the Lord of Hosts says, oh, 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.

You're like, how does this help me, pastor? You had me at God's love. I like that part.

That made me feel good. But how was this a reminder of God's love? God's reminding the people of Israel how much he loves them by telling them how much he hates and is going to smite somebody else.

How does that work? What does this look like? I don't know about you, but I don't know if I need my wife to express her love to me by smiting our enemy, right?

But this is how God is responding to the people of Israel here. It's in order to understand what

God is reminding them of, we have to understand the story of Jacob and Esau. So turn with me back to Genesis chapter 25.

Genesis 25. While you're turning there, you remember the story of Abraham. God had promised to make him the father of a great nation.

And so in his old age, him and his wife are past the age of childbearing, and he's like, well, you're going to make me the father of a great nation.

I don't even have a kid. But God provides an offspring, doesn't he? You remember, what's his son's name?

Isaac. Remember Isaac? So we have Isaac here. And Isaac, he marries a woman named

Rebekah. Most of you probably know the story fairly well. But in Genesis 25, look at verse 21.

And Isaac here prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren, meaning at the moment she just wasn't able to have children.

They were trying to have kids, and it just wasn't happening, right? And the Lord granted his prayer.

And Rebekah, his wife, conceived. The children struggled together within her. And she said, if it is thus, why is this happening to me?

So she went to inquire of the Lord. But what's going on here is why is there so much turmoil going on within me?

What are you doing, God? Like I prayed that you would give us a child, and then all of a sudden

I've got like a whole war going on inside of me. Some of you mothers may have felt like that at times, right?

Look at verse 23. And the Lord said to her, he explains what's happening. He said, two nations are in your womb.

Hold on just a second. For those who think for one second that God doesn't plan and know the future, passages like this don't make any sense.

God's not making an educated prediction here. He's telling exactly what's going on, right?

There's two nations in your womb. I've ordained it to be so. And two peoples from within you shall be divided.

The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger.

You all remember the story Esau was born first and then Jacob? This is the story of these brothers,

Jacob and Esau. Two brothers, same parents, same upbringing. And our passage in Malachi says, yet I have loved

Jacob, but Esau I have hated. You might try and wiggle around some of this, and you might say, oh,

I get it. Jacob was the good son. God must have loved him because he was the good son.

Esau rejected God, and that's why he hated him. And Jacob was the good one.

He accepted the things of God, and he did all good things, so that means God loved him.

And, oh, by the way, the people over there in Malachi, that's the offspring of Jacob, and that's why he loves them.

They're all good people. That doesn't add up, does it? Actually, turn over with me to Romans 9.

You all know this passage. This story is addressed by Paul over here and gives us a little bit of clarity there in the

New Testament, Romans 9. It's a very commonly misunderstood chapter.

Lots of debate over this chapter and what's going on here, but I think it gives us some clarity to understanding what

God is saying to the people of Israel in Malachi's time. But in Romans 9, look at verse 6.

Let's start in verse 6. But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

That's important, right? Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

There's that faithful remnant in Israel, those who are children of Abraham by faith. And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

Oh, what is he talking about here? Well, let's go on. Let's look. Remember, Isaac is Jacob and Esau's father, right?

This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

Always saying, God said, I will make you the father of a great nation. Like there is an offspring.

By the way, did you all ever sing that song in VBS when you were a kid? Father Abraham has many sons.

Many sons have father Abraham. I am one of them and so were you. Yeah. That's the idea.

We are children of Abraham by faith, right? That's essentially what Paul is saying here.

Look at verse 9. For this is what the promise said. About this time next year

I will return and Sarah will have a son. Who's that? Isaac. And not only so, but also when

Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing good or bad.

Nothing lovable, nothing righteous, nothing better than the other. You get that?

Before they were born. They had not been born. They had done nothing good nor bad. In order that God's purpose of election might continue.

Not because of works, but because of him who calls. Not because of doing good deeds does

God love you. Not because you were better than your neighbor does God love you.

Not because Jacob was good and Esau was bad did he love him. She was told the older shall serve the younger.

As it is written, Jacob I loved, Esau I have hated.

We don't like that version of God, do we? Pastor, you said

God is love. That means he must love everyone equally. That's the only fair way to love, isn't it?

It's the only fair way for you to love, me to love. Because we're the creature, he's the creator.

And all that he does is right. If you remember the story of Jacob, you know that he was anything but lovable.

As a matter of fact, if you read the story, you begin to think maybe Esau was more lovable than Jacob. Jacob was the usurper.

He was the weaselly little mama's boy sitting in the house when his brother was the hunter with the hairy arms.

You know, bringing home the bacon. And Jacob was in there maybe reading books or something.

And you think, well, he wasn't lovable. He deceived his brother for his birthright.

This guy is a total scoundrel. This guy is disgusting. This guy is not a man.

This guy is not lovable. There's nothing about him that God should love. But here's the difference.

Esau is no better. That's what we get confused. I've actually heard it preached like that.

Well, Esau is a better man than Jacob. Well, maybe in the world standards, he's more of a man, yes, but he's not more lovable.

He's not more righteous. He willingly sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. That's how pagan

Esau was. These two give us a clear picture of the state of humanity.

Selfish, evil, corrupt, and foolish. Every bit of their core because they are corrupted by sin.

And you see, this is why God is reminding the offspring of Jacob. Okay, hold on, bear with me.

He's saying, I have loved you. Look at my faithfulness in the midst of your unfaithfulness.

Jacob did not deserve my love. He, like his brother Esau, deserved my everlasting wrath, yet received my everlasting love and mercy.

The people of Edom, mentioned there in verse 4 in Malachi in our text, that can be confusing because you think, well, who are the people of Edom?

These are the offspring of Esau. Okay, there's a whole, I'm not going to go into it today.

I was going to give you more of a historical context. I was like, I do not have time for that. Just know, the people of Edom, these are the offspring of Esau.

And these people had persecuted and ridiculed the children of Israel for centuries.

And here they seem, in this particular moment, or building up to this moment, they seem to have been flourishing through the

Babylonian and Persian conquest, while Israel was suffering. But God is reminding them of what he said through his prophets.

Jeremiah, Obadiah, and I believe Amos, Yep, Amos, all predicted and prophesied, not predicted, but prophesied of the destruction of the people of Edom because of their wicked deeds.

As a matter of fact, in Obadiah 1 .10, he says, Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you and you shall be cut off forever.

Edom, Esau, got what he rightly deserved, to be cut off from God and rejected fully, and left in his sin, left in his enmity towards his creator, to carry out the wicked deeds of the flesh, and then reap the recompense due him, just like Jacob deserved, just like the people of Israel at this time deserved.

Loving kindness. God is saying, trust me, I've proven true time and time again.

They may rebuild. You may seem to see the flourishing of the wicked right now.

Those people of Edom, they're not my promised people. They're not the ones that I'm bringing the

Messiah from. They're not the ones that I've set my love upon. They may seem to be doing well during this difficult period of time and during this circumstance that I, by the way, have ordained.

They may seem to be flourishing, but my wrath towards them is kindled.

They will certainly be cut off. They, unlike the faithful remnant of Israel, will be wiped out.

I will do so. You can guarantee. Just as we see in Malachi 1 .5

there, that final verse, your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, great is the

Lord beyond the border of Israel. God's in this for his glory.

You may not see what he's doing. You may not see how he's working. Just like the people of Israel didn't see, all they saw was their current circumstances.

What they didn't realize is what we talked about last week, that here in a few hundred years, God's faithful promise would most certainly arrive through the

Messiah, Jesus Christ. He was going to show up. He was going to redeem a people to himself and eat them.

They'll be nowhere to be found during that. As a matter of fact, actually, they were used as persecution towards Jesus.

It's a long story, but God wiped them out. Here's the point.

If you are a recipient of God's love this morning, it is not because you were lovable.

It's not because you chose him when others rejected him. The only difference between Jacob and Esau was the fact that the

God of love plucked Jacob out of the mire of sin and said, you are mine. The only difference between us and our lost neighbor is that the

God of love sovereignly chose, sought and found, purchased and redeemed us unworthy rebels of and towards his will.

He has proven that love time and time again, ultimately through the sacrifice of his son.

And here's what I want to resonate with us this morning. Condemnation and guilt will never break you out of spiritual apathy.

Condemnation and guilt will never, ever help your brother or sister in Christ to break out of sin and spiritual apathy.

It can't. It never works. Only the reminder of his faithful, unwavering love has the power to draw us out of our indifference.

Paul said in Romans 2, he said, Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

I want you to remember as we're praying for revival this next couple of months, as we're seeking and we're fasting and we're seeking

God to do an awakening in our lives and in the lives of our brothers and sisters here in the community and the world around us, as we seek after that, it cannot be simulated by false emotion.

It cannot be created by guilt and legalism, by rules.

It cannot bring about a heart change to tell that young lady, you're going to have to dress more modest because God's not happy with this.

It's not going to help to tell that young man who is struggling with sin and things in his life to just tell him, do better.

Go read your Bible more. You point them to the goodness and grace and love of God.

That's what God does with us. That's what God does and that's why we should live a life of grace and mercy, overwhelming, not that we don't call out sin, not that we don't push people to look to the precepts of God.

That comes, but it always comes after love. God says,

I have loved you, Saint, and I have proven it. Now live in the freedom of that love.

That is how we will overcome spiritual apathy and indifference in our lives and walk with the

Lord. In light of that, let us prepare our hearts to go to the table.

This is a time when sometimes we use it as penance.

We say, oh man, I just haven't been living for the Lord the way I should. Man, I got to get better. I got to do better.

I know the Lord's Supper is coming. I've got to make sure to blot out some of this sin in my life.

If you're trying to do that in the wrong order, it's done from a wrong motive.

I want you to think of the table this morning in terms of God's great love and that proven love by sending

His Son. And when you do that and you look to Christ and you say, oh, look at what my

Savior has done, guess what that leads to? That leads to conviction of sin and a true desire to be free from it.

It all stems from God's love, God's acceptance and mercy and grace in our lives.

Let us be a people of grace this morning. As a matter of fact, I wasn't sure if I was going to do this this morning, but sometimes we sing a song of reflection.

Y 'all want to sing a song of reflection today? Do you? I do.

I want to sing a song of reflection today. Give me a second. Let me grab this. Y 'all know the song,

How Deep the Father's Love? I think this is quite appropriate for us as we think about the love of God today.

Why don't you stand with me? Great the pain of searing love.

There shows His grace this way. Has wounds which mar the chosen one.

Bring many sons to glow. Behold my sin upon His shoulder.

It was my sin that held

Him there. Until it was accomplished.

His dying breath has brought me life. I won't boast in anything.

No gifts, no power, no wisdom. But I will boast in Jesus Christ.

His death and resurrection. Amen. Why should

I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer.

But this I know with all His wounds have paid my ransom.

Amen. Praise God. Let's pray this morning for our time at the table.

Let's come with boldness knowing the love of God. If you do have unconfessed sin in your life, look to the love of God.

Look to Christ. Look to the cross and lay it at the foot of the cross. When you paid for even that, and I confess it.

I lay it before you and I turn from it. Because of your great love. And we can come boldly to this table and partake of the wine and the bread.

That represents the wonderful, beautiful, magnificent body and blood of our Savior.

Lord, be honored in our time of worship through the table this morning. May we see these elements as they are.

As a beautiful representation of your grace in our lives. Your kindness and mercy.

For redeeming us. For following through with your promise. Help us to rest in it.

Help us to love it. Help us to serve you in the midst of your great ordinance.

For this body, for this church. In Christ's name, amen. You're welcome to come to the table now.