Dead Religion or Risen Lord

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawa, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series,

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

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Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I want to wish you a happy resurrection day.

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Jesus Christ, our Lord, has risen from the grave. He has risen indeed.

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He is victorious over sin and death, and I hope you're able to take significant comfort in that truth as we gather together this morning.

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Jesus Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. It's such a joy to be back.

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I missed being here, but I absolutely loved being in Uganda for the past two weeks with the team there ministering.

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It seemed like a whirlwind trip. It's hard to believe that it's already over. We're going to be sharing a video in a few weeks of the trip and kind of collating some of the stuff, and I think

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I can probably speak on behalf of most of the people that were on that trip that it's a little overwhelming for us to try to summarize that trip.

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There was just so much there, and it's going to take us some time to process that. I'm hoping that we can all share a testimony, and I haven't even told the team that, so they're hearing this for the first time, but I'm hoping that everybody can share a testimony at the next family meeting in the evening at the meeting room, and so everybody can kind of share what the trip meant to them and some of the things that they took away from that.

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And so we'll be looking forward to that as we share with you, and I would encourage you, you know, if you're going to talk with one of the people who were on the trip, try your best to just kind of ask a pointed question.

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Sometimes, generally speaking, the question, how was the trip, is a really hard question to answer other than good.

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But if you have some things that you'd like to ask, it's helpful if you can be specific with those questions, that's really beneficial.

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This morning, we're going to be wrapping up the book of Malachi. As you know, it's Easter, Don. Are we really going to go forward with this series?

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And I could be accused of being a little self -serving and want to finish a series or something like that, but as I read and I studied this and I thought about it in advance,

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I thought about it before I even left on the trip, and I had decided in advance to finish this book, and I think you'll be able to see that at first glance, this is indeed a strange text for an

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Easter message, but I think by the end, we'll all see the significance of this text on the message of Easter and resurrection as we study together.

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I want to point out that regardless of where you're looking at in scripture, regardless of what you're reading, the hope is always the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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That is always our hope. We have no place else to go for hope other than the resurrection.

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That the tomb was empty is the hope of Malachi, is the hope of Jeremiah, was the hope of of Judah, was the hope of Israel, is the hope for us here in Matawan today.

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And so regardless of where we're looking at in scripture, everything comes back to this one question, do you believe that the tomb was empty?

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If you believe that that's true, then my goodness, you have a significant, amazing, glorious, powerful source of hope to live your life.

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And I think you've probably experienced this too as we look at Malachi chapter 4 this morning, hope is often found in some of the darkest of places.

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Have you experienced that in your life? It's really at the backdrop of the darkness that hope shines brighter as we see the darkness of the human heart, as we see the darkness of sin and the judgment of God that is coming.

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Hope is found in dark places like a very dark tomb where the stone was rolled over the face of that tomb and it was dark.

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A dead man had been laid to rest. What usually happens when dead men are laid to rest?

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They stay there and they rot. But we know that the greatest of hope came in that dark place, that dark place where it was supposed to be decay and rot and instead hope rose again on that day, that glorious day 2 ,000 years ago.

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The text we're going to be looking at this morning is laden with the theme of judgment. The book of Malachi has been strong in terms of the righteous judgment of God and it's very significant that we see this judgment in the context of hope.

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You see, the people around Malachi during his time questioned whether God was really a

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God of justice. Was he really going to fix things? Was he really concerned with sin?

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They looked around them and they saw injustice and they came to the conclusion that God was all right with sin. He's okay with it.

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He must be okay with it because we know people who are evil and wicked and they get away with it, the people thought.

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It appeared to their eyes and it sometimes can appear to our eyes as well that evil and wicked people get by scot -free.

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And this moved the people in Malachi's day and age to think wrongly about God, to think incorrectly in their theology about who he is and how he rolls.

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And that wrong thinking about God led them to think that God was a pushover. Some people in our culture think of God as a pushover.

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We get the phrase, you know, God is the big grandfather in the sky. Maybe his hearing is a little off.

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He can't quite hear all that we say. Maybe his eyesight is failing. Maybe he doesn't quite see everything that we do.

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He always brings candy for the grandkids, right? But this led the religious culture of Malachi's day toward a dead religion.

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They went through the religious duties. They gave a little bit to the Lord, you know, from time to time, just kind of cover their bases.

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But they went through those religious duties but never gave their best.

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They messed up their families. God's going to be forgiving. They went through divorce and adultery and assumed that God would ignore it and he would be okay with it.

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And, you know, I mean, we know people who have gone through that and they're okay. And but in the last couple of chapters of Malachi, God has been clear that there will indeed be a major difference, a major distinction between those who fear him and those who do not.

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We will be clearly, we will clearly see in the end this distinction. Respect and reverent awe of God are an important component of saving faith.

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And so our text this morning will be a contrast between the fate of those who fear the Lord enough to honor him and those who remain in their wickedness without humbling themselves before the

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Almighty. So in this text we're going to find harsh judgment toward those who choose wickedness over reverent fear.

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But for those who humble themselves under the Almighty, they will celebrate a freedom and joy that is beyond compare.

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That reminds me of an empty tomb. So let's open your Bibles to Malachi chapter 4.

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If you're not there already, if you don't have a Bible on your lap or a device or a means to navigate to one,

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Mike has a Bible but the only way he knows to bring you one is if you raise your hand. We're not trying to call you out but we want everybody to have a copy of God's Word.

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And so if you just slip your hand up, let Mike know, he'll bring you a Bible. We are going to be walking through this text.

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It's really beneficial to have a Bible on your lap as we read Malachi chapter 4.

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And you guys, this is God's very word to us here this Easter morning. This is what he desires for us to hear and it's a powerful thing that he will speak to us through this.

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Malachi chapter 4. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and evildoers will be stubble.

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The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

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But for you who fear my name, let me say that righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

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You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when

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I act, says the Lord of hosts. Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all

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Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for hope.

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Even in the midst of judgment, even in the midst of Malachi, even here at the very end where judgment is being proclaimed, there's this amazing, glorious, beautiful hope in the middle for those who would fear you, who would come to you in humility, would submit to your call on our lives.

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And Father, what is kind of fuzzy and nuanced in the Old Testament becomes abundantly clear in the New Testament, that salvation comes through faith and trust in your

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Son who gave his life for us. We remember that on Friday, his bloody and terrible sacrifice in our place, and we call it

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Good Friday, because although terrible things happened on that day, the greatest good in the universe came about on that day as redemption was won for your people.

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That wasn't the end. We meditated and thought yesterday on the darkness of that tomb that wasn't empty, that the darkness and the hopelessness that was felt in those days, in those hours.

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And then we reflect this morning as the sun rose, the stone was rolled away, and our

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Savior stepped free from the tomb, victorious over sin and death. That we don't need to face judgment any longer, that we have a hope of resurrection, the very power that raised

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Christ from the dead will be the power that raises us again to new life and raises us to an eternity with him.

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Father, I pray that our hearts would rejoice, that we would rejoice correctly with enthusiasm and excitement this morning because of the great salvation that has been won for us in your

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Son. Let our hearts go free, skipping about like calves set free from the stall, and free to pasture, and because of the freedom that we've been granted in Christ.

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And as we sing songs, just Father, allow our voices to rise up to you this morning, in Jesus' name.

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I really appreciate the effort that Dave has put into preparing songs for this morning, and just grateful for the skills that God has given to him and the team and all of that, so thankful for them.

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I encourage you to get comfortable and stay as comfortable as possible. If you need to get up and stretch out in the back, if you need more coffee, juice, or donuts, you're not going to distract me if you get up there and get more, but whatever it takes to keep your focus on God's word.

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If you're new with us this morning, let me clarify, restrooms are at this end, so if you go out in the hallway, turn right.

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Men's upstairs, women's downstairs. You might be familiar with the building and know that there's bathrooms over here, but we saved those for the kids ministry on Sunday mornings, so we just ask that you use the ones on this end of the building if you need to use those at any time.

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And last kind of order of business, make sure you have your Bibles open to Malachi chapter 4. Malachi 4 is what we're going to walk through, and I want you to see that the things that we're talking about this morning are coming from God's word.

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They're not coming from me. I'm not making them up. I'm not inventing them, but the goal is that God's word would transform us and change us here this morning.

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Now the reality is, I recognize it's Easter, and some of you likely came to church this morning, and you thought, how many of you thought, oh it's

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Easter, at least at some point this morning? Like did you, did that cross your mind? Oh good, good, that's most of us.

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Some of you aren't with me yet, so you didn't raise your hand, but you probably had some expectations of what you might hear this morning.

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Maybe you thought you would come and take in a nice message about an empty tomb, or a message about new beginnings, or some kind of spring type message that's really uplifting, and like whoa, this is all awesome and good, and way to start my spring, and then you read chapter four, verse one, and it's like, where is

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Don going? Don, do you know what you're doing here? Like that might be a question in your mind. You might even get ribbed by your spouse at some point this morning and go, he does know it's

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Easter, right? Like, and I do, but this is God's word, and we're not gonna take, it's not gonna take too much for us to understand how this message connects with the message of Easter, so I encourage you to hang in there and bear with me as we walk through verses one and three to begin with.

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Verse one begins with words of harsh, very harsh words of judgment. For that matter, verse three also contains a harsh declaration of judgment, but we're gonna find that this is kind of like a sandwich, and the bread is like that, any of you ever eat

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Ezekiel bread? Some of you maybe love it, but I can't stand it, and it tastes like hate, but that's just my opinion, but, and it tastes a little bit like judgment, and so we're looking at this kind of like,

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I mean Ezekiel is a prophet who proclaimed judgment, so it kind of works, but it's kind of like that, it's hard to take in, and it's like verses one and three, and then verse two is like the delicious goodness in the middle, and you kind of want to just take the bread off and eat what's in the middle, and that's kind of the way that we look at these three verses.

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Verses one and three are severe and stern words of judgment, and there nestled in the middle is this glorious, beautiful freedom and hope.

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It's an amazing hope that is given to any who would listen to the warning of the book of Malachi.

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The harshness of judgment is direct and clear, but equally the call of a joy -filled freedom is here for anyone who has ears to hear, and that's why

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I thought it appropriate to forge ahead with this text this morning, because Easter is at its fundamental core about hope, and we're going to see that hope is only ever set in the backdrop of judgment in a fallen world.

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Malachi had already established earlier throughout this book that God's judgment will be made clear on the final day.

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I mentioned that the people of Malachi's day and age were kind of doubting that God was a God of justice.

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Is he really going to judge the wicked? Probably not, it's going to be okay, and so why not do a little bit of evil here because, hey, he's not judging, and so we'll be all okay.

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But the destiny of the wicked and the righteous will indeed starkly be different, and this text highlights what he's been stating throughout this book.

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And now in verse one he describes that day in graphic detail. The day of judgment is indeed coming.

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Do you see that? For behold, he wants to state it so emphatically clear. That day, verse four, for behold the day is coming.

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There is indeed a day that is set for the judgment of all. It is a certainty that there will be a final day.

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Now for us it's still future, and God's patience has continued to the very Easter day where we are sitting here gathered together to this very day, but scripture wants you to be certain that this day will indeed occur, and it will be a real day just like any other day, but it will be the final day of judgment, and it will be a day that arrives like a scorching oven, the text tells us.

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Malachi moves quickly to the arrogant and the evildoers, and the result of this day for them will be that they'll be reduced to burning stubble.

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The image is an agricultural image that is used throughout scripture for judgment. It was quite common for the

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Old Testament prophets to use an agricultural idea of separating the good grain from the husk or the hard outer shell.

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Now we don't have that experience because we just go to the store and buy flour, right? Like most of us wouldn't even know what wheat looks like, a lot of us, and so you don't realize that there's this hard outer shell that has to be crushed off of the grain in order to get to the wheat, the usable part.

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You can't eat it, it's too tough, and you can't even chew it until you break that husk off, and so the idea of separating the unusable portion of the grain with the usable portion was often a picture of judgment, of the separation that was going to happen in the end.

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The grain was all gathered during this era of Malachi, was gathered into a threshing floor and beaten until it was separated from that hard shell of the grain.

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Sometimes even they would have oxen walk over it to break it all apart so that the grain would be separated, and then all of that was thrown into the air on a windy day.

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You needed a windy day to really process this well, and a process called winnowing, and have you ever heard the word winnowing?

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It's not a very common word, but it was taking like a big rake and you have all of that, all that mess of grain with the shells and all that in it, and on a windy day you would take it and you'd scoop it up and you'd just throw it up in the air.

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Well the hard outer shell was lighter and the wind would blow it away and the heavier grain would fall right back on the floor, and so you do that, you do that for an hour and eventually you've got a pile of grain here and a pile of chaff over there.

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Chaff is what they would call it, all that hard outer husk. Well all of that, that hard outer husk was useless, and guess what they would do with it?

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They'd throw it in the fire. That's the picture, the imagery that's being done here, where the grain settles and is on the ground and can be used and is beneficial, the chaff is thrown away into the fire.

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And notice with me who incurs this terrible judgment by fire in this text. It is the arrogant and the evildoers.

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It's interesting that Malachi singles out specifically the sin of arrogance for this ultimate of judgments.

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The New Testament helps shed some light on why the sin of arrogance might be held up as a sin so worthy of condemnation as one that would be a primary judgment, a primary sin for judgment for humanity.

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By the way, I don't believe that God is just picking on one particular sin. Well arrogance is, you know, arrogance is one that I really hate and so I'm going to highlight that one here.

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You see in the Old Testament we see some significance, some significant but general things stated about the arrogant.

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God despises the arrogant, God hates the haughty. If you were to go through the Proverbs and look at every time that the word arrogant or haughty, an interchangeable word is used, you would see

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God's hatred. It would be well established in the Old Testament that God despises an arrogant heart but the humble

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He draws near to. But He despises an arrogant heart. Well that's a generalism, that's a proverb kind of type of thing in the

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Old Testament. But the New Testament takes things up a notch by indicating that our salvation comes through humility.

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Our salvation comes through humility. A person, in other words, cannot hold on to arrogance and be saved simultaneously.

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You can't hold on to arrogance and be saved. Those two things are incompatible. You can't come to God going,

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I've got this, I've got this taken care of. You wouldn't even ask for salvation if you come to Him with arrogance.

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The very nature of salvation that God offers in the New Testament requires that we recognize how little we can help ourselves, which is humility.

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You see, the arrogant will not cry out for help. The arrogant will continue to try to save themselves.

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The arrogant do not perceive their need for God. They do not respect God. They do not perceive the need to obey

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God in any way, let alone obey the way that He has provided for salvation to come through His Son.

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The arrogant will not look to the cross and accept the gift that is freely offered to them, but instead they will continue to attempt to buy their own way.

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The arrogant are pleased to continue on in their own dead religion. On that day of judgment, it will be a devastating reality to all who remain in an arrogant posture toward God.

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Further regarding this judgment, you can jump over to verse 3 and see that the wicked stubble will be like ashes on the soles of the feet of those who feared the

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Lord. There is a day when God will indeed act in judgment and those who feared Him will tread down the wicked.

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So how are we doing? Is everybody doing okay? This is not so Easter -y, is it?

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It's not so comfortable. But I want to suggest to you that our discomfort over verse 3, it has something to do,

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I think, and I mean, yes, I've just come back from Uganda and I think that that's flavored a little bit of the way that I feel about this text and the things that I've seen, but here in America we are so removed from injustice and oppression, it makes it very difficult for us to relate to the rest of the

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Christian world that clings to verses like this. Their hope is in verses like this, that there will indeed be vindication, there will be indeed judgment for the oppressor and the abuser.

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And we're kind of like, God, aren't you being a little tough here? Aren't you being a little harsh here? I think that has something to do with how much oppression and abuse we've experienced.

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Maybe some of you have experienced abuse and you have the more abuse and the more oppression you've experienced, the more you can cling to a verse like this and go, there is justice, there is indeed going to be judgment in the end.

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Do you get what I'm saying in this? But for us, we can kind of afford to be uncomfortable with a verse like this.

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Because we've been born and brought up in so much, a place of so much privilege, many people in the world know what it means to only hope in the restored life that is to come, because this existence is poverty and misery to them.

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And we saw some of that in the last couple of weeks. So when a passage like this makes you uncomfortable, just remember that it is only because you've been born into such privilege that you can be uncomfortable with this, rather than rejoicing in it.

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If you haven't experienced oppression and abuse, then you look at this text and probably think, God, this seems a little bit harsh.

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But the reality is, God is restoring things. And when a person sets out to restore an old car,

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I just use that as an illustration, not something that all of us can relate to. I'm not super handy, and the last thing

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I would probably do on this planet is restore an old car. Some of you have done something like this, or watched somebody do something like this.

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But anybody who's restoring an old car are going to keep some parts. They're going to have some parts that they find on that chassis, or some parts that are there, and they're going to keep some of that stuff.

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Some of the parts are going to need to be really overhauled, and renovated, and changed, and updated, and all of that kind of stuff.

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But some of the parts are just completely useless. They can't even be restored, and they're going to have to be removed completely.

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And that's the reality. In the restoration of the world, those parts that will remain are those that have humbled themselves, and have been moved to run to God for mercy, to recognize how awesome, and glorious, and powerful

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He truly is. They will be those who fear His name, and revere Him, because He is the

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Almighty Creator. But those parts that will be removed, and not be a part of the restored order, are those parts that refuse to function according to the

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Master's way. They will be those who would not acknowledge the rule and reign of their Creator. And they will, quite frankly, be a lot of people who think that they could have done a better job than God Himself.

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The titles arrogant, evildoer, and wicked are not words far from words that could describe you or me.

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Do you agree with that? Can you step into humility, and admit that those words are not far from your heart?

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They're not far from words that describe you, and me. And Paul even says, such were some of you, but you have been washed, you've been cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

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I want to point out that, humanly speaking, just on a, just watch my life, and watch somebody else's life, the line between the condemned and the righteous is quite thin in practical terms.

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Do you agree with that? It's a very thin line between the way that my life looks, and the way that somebody who's condemned looks.

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I mean, you could look, watch my life, and go, well, he sins just about as much as this other person. Or you can identify that, or the weight of sin that I've been forgiven is quite a bit.

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And so, in practical terms, it seems like a thin line. But I want to point out that in spiritual reality, you can't measure the width of that line.

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The things that have been granted to the follower of Jesus Christ, the one who has been saved, the line is enormous.

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We look at somebody's life, and yeah, it looks about the same, but think about what is true of you in Christ.

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I have been set free from the bondage to sin. I've been washed in the blood of the

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Son of God. I have been gifted His amazing righteousness, and His good has been credited to my account.

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I have the indwelling Spirit of God guiding me into all righteousness, and convicting me when I stray. I have the hope of resurrection, and the hope of eternal life with God, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on my behalf.

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I have the hope of an eternal healing, because the Lord, who possesses the power of healing, will raise me up on that final and glorious day.

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The same power that raised Christ from the dead will one day raise us up. Is that a difference?

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It's a huge difference between us and those who are condemned. Look with me at verse two.

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Let's get to some of the heart of this. But for you who fear my name, but for you who have humbled yourself under His name,

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His glorious, beautiful name, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the anointed one who saves

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His people. That's what the word, that's what the name means. For those who you've humbled yourself under that name, and revered that name, but for you who fear my name,

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God says. We know right away that verse two is going to be a contrast to verse one by the conjunction but that is there, and this is the mother of all contrasts here between verses one and verses two.

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Verse two, it is a contrast of infinite proportions. The fiery condemnation of the arrogant, and the healing, and great joy of those who submitted to Him in humble reverence.

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An awesome contrast. You who fear His name, you who recognize that He is the rightful

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King, you who acknowledge that He has the right to call the shots in your life, you who acknowledge that He gets to set the pathway of salvation, you who recognize that pathway of salvation is found in by faith and trust in His son

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Jesus Christ, who died for you and rose again three days later, that day will be like a new dawn of righteousness for you.

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It will be like the first light of morning after a very dark night. Many of you have experienced a proverbial dark night of the soul.

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Some of you are going through it now. I know some of you personally, and some of the pains that some of you are going through.

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I know some of you have had sleepless nights wrestling with God over a horrible diagnosis. Some of you have had seasons around the loss of a loved one.

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Some of you in this room have even lost a child. Some of you are duking it out and battling for your life against sin that is cropping up against you.

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Whatever your darkness during your walk through this world, take courage because a dawning is coming.

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The dawning is coming. David wrote it this way in Psalm 30 verse 5, weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes in the morning.

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Weeping may tarry for the night but joy is on the way.

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A dawn is coming. We should not shrink back from His coming. We should rejoice that our

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Savior is on His way. The son of righteousness is on His way and He brings with Him healing.

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He will fix what is broken. He will mend His people. He proves during His earthly ministry that nothing is beyond His ability to heal.

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Have you ever thought about that? When He was here on this planet, He healed blind people. He raised the dead. He did all these things.

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But guess what? Those blind people died again. Those lame people got up to walk only to eventually lose their ability to walk once again and be buried in the ground.

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Well, why would He do that? Why would He waste that power to to do this? Well, I believe it was to show compassion but also to demonstrate ultimately

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His immense power to restore that which is broken. He did that to demonstrate that He is indeed the great healer and He will one day arrive with healing in His wings, fixing what is broken.

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A dear friend of mine passed away while we were in Uganda. She was born with cancer in her eyes, had to have both of them removed soon after birth.

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She did not know what it was like to see. Her spirit was so kind and full of grace, she was a counselor on the staff at the previous church, the church that helped us get started.

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One of the sweetest, kindest souls that any have known. And she now sees.

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She now sees. Do you know how I know she sees? Because her trust was placed in the

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One with healing, the One who brings healing, the One who because of the power of God raising

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Him from the dead now has the authority and the power and one day she will be resurrected just like you or me for an eternity of glory with no sin, with no pain, no suffering, and no more brokenness, no more blindness, no more lameness.

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And none of this battle with sin that we struggle with day in and day out and no more specter of death.

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Our entire lives are lived under this reality that we live in the valley of the shadow of death.

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All of our lives are lived there with that specter of a limited time ahead of us. There's a kingdom coming that has no end.

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You're not limited by the amount of time. No, up, running out of time, I got to get going, I got to move to the next person,

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I got to get to the next thing, I got to go. No more limit of time. Imagine what that's going to be like, the glory of the hope of the healing

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One who brings to us healing. What a contrast.

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What a contrast we see in this judgment sandwich with delight and joy in the middle.

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Those who feared the Lord with reverent awe, they shall go out leaping like calves set free from the stall, confined in a little stall is what the imagery of what our lives are lived like, confined by time, confined by sin, confined by brokenness, confined by infirmity.

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You could list the things that bind you today. And some of us couldn't list them all.

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There are things that are binding you you don't even know. And the day when

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Christ returns for us, that's like a setting free. Those things that constrain you and hold you in, and you will go out like a calf leaping in the field with the open spaces with nothing constraining you any longer.

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Let that picture rest in your heart of what destiny Christ has purchased for you by His death on the cross and His resurrection in that empty tomb.

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What is He coming back like? The One who will set His people free at the ultimate healing.

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I hope you find great joy and great comfort in that. I hope you're seeing how maybe this ties a little bit with the

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Easter message of hope today. Think about it.

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On that great day, those who respected God enough to submit to Him and His way of salvation will be set free.

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Set free from sin, set free from the bondage to decay and death, set free from uncertainty and doubt, set free from pain and suffering, set free from the power of evil, and we will rejoice.

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We will celebrate the freedom that is brought to us. Do you see the contrast between these two destinies?

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Stubble and freedom. One is a terrible destiny for the arrogant, and the other is a delightful destiny for those who humble and revere

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God. Why do you think Malachi has concluded with this contrast at the end of this prophecy, this entire book?

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I think he wants to be sure that those who think the wicked will go on without punishment are corrected. I think he wants to make it abundantly clear that there is indeed a judgment coming, but God's justice is delayed by His mercy.

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But it is indeed on the way. His justice will be seen by all. But I also think

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God is still calling out in mercy to the arrogant through Malachi. If you can hear this message this morning, then it's not too late for you.

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Come to the Almighty, submit to Him, revere Him, come to the way of salvation that He has provided for you.

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Come to Jesus by faith before it's too late for you. Verse four, as we kind of wrap things up, verse four may seem out of place, but in the times when

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Malachi wrote this, I believe that this had the purpose to remind the old covenant people of God that they should get back to the law given to them on Mount Sinai.

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Mount Sinai is another interchangeable with Mount Horeb, as you see there in the text.

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But now for us in this new covenant, as the new covenant people of God in the new covenant period, any reminder of the law is an excellent reminder of our own need for a righteousness that, as Paul would say, comes apart from the law.

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When we see a reminder of the law or an injunction to us as New Testament saints to look back at the law, we should remember it as that ancient code that was given to a people without the indwelling spirit of God.

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It was given as a tutor showing us our own brokenness and our need for a Savior. So let this call here in the text for all of us to remember the law be a reminder that God is righteous and holy.

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He has a standard of righteousness and holiness that nobody can achieve by the law. And let the righteous demands of God be a guide that reminds you of your inability to save yourself.

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You see, the judgment will not be based on how well you kept the law of God, but on the recognition that the law has been fulfilled by Christ on your behalf.

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He has fulfilled it for you. And there's an interesting twist at the end of the book of Malachi in verses five and six.

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We find that a part of the problem of Malachi's day was going to be years in the restoration. Sometimes as a society, sometimes as a culture, we break things down so much that it takes a long time for things to get fixed.

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The family life of Israel during the time of Malachi was in shambles. Remember, men were divorcing and leaving their wives of many years to marry or commit adultery with idolatrous foreign women.

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And he's indicted the men for that sin in this text. But God predicted that 400 years later at the ministry of John the

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Baptist here in verses five and six, that the hearts of the fathers would be turned to their children and the hearts of the children would once again finally be returned to their fathers.

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Family takes a direction. Culturally, the family takes a direction based on faith and trust in Christ.

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I want to say at the end of this text that repentance, if you repent of your sin and you come to Christ, it will have an impact on real life.

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We don't get saved merely for the day of judgment, but our relationships with God will affect our other relationships in life as well, starting with our families.

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The entire book of Malachi concludes with a warning that a decree of utter destruction will come from God if the people do not turn back to him.

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But don't worry about that. The ministry of Malachi must have been a success. It appears to be because God never completely wiped them out.

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He never fulfilled that decree, so they must have turned to some degree toward him. So again, this seems like a strange passage for Easter, but I want to wrap this up with a couple of applications for you to think through.

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And if you're taking notes, you can jot these down. But the first is consider the son of righteousness coming with healing.

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Consider the dawn of new hope. Consider the dawn of new healing that is coming and then consider the correlation between that hope offered by Malachi and the hope offered as the sun rose over Jerusalem on what appeared to be a normal day in Palestine almost 2 ,000 years ago.

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It seemed like a normal day, but as the women arrived, the stone had already been rolled away from the tomb, and the sun rose above the horizon that day on a very new type of day.

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And although that day seemed like an ordinary day, everything changed when the son of God rose victorious over the grave.

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He's alive and he is returning for his people with healing. Do you believe that Jesus rose from the grave?

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Do you believe that? Do you believe that Christ has the power over sin and death? He is the one who will return for his people and usher in a dawning of a new day with healing and freedom for all of his people.

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Consider the son of righteousness coming with healing. Second, consider the arrogance of the wicked.

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Where is your heart in regard to submission to the Almighty? Are you holding things back from him?

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Saving faith requires reverent awe of the Holy One. Maybe some of us here need to study

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God's word more so that we can truly see him as he is and be in awe of him and be moved in our spirits more than just a mental assent,

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God, you're awesome, you're pretty amazing, to moments of complete awe and wonder and almost immobility over how glorious and majestic our

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God truly is. Maybe the way that the world views

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God has seeped into our understanding and we have some things wrong about him and we really need to get back to his word to receive correction on those things.

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Maybe we think he will never judge. That's what our world is telling us, that's what our culture is telling us.

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He won't judge. Just do things your way. He would never judge you for doing something that fulfills you or makes you feel better.

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This passage disagrees with our culture that says God is a pushover. He is not a pushover.

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Lastly, I want you to consider the role of rejoicing in your life. Are you rejoicing?

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Those who revere his name will have no more fear but will go out leaping like calves from the stall.

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We know that'll be reality on that day and I would just encourage you to practice it today. I'd encourage you to get, just warm up for it.

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Get some jumping and leaping going on. We experienced some of that in Uganda, didn't we guys?

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Raise your hand if you were on the trip. Did you guys see some jumping and leaping there? Literally jumping and leaping.

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Mike Hogeboom was joking about maybe we should take a video of our worship and send it to them because I think they'd find it very novel.

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We found it very interesting there and yes, there is a lot of incriminating video of team members trying to dance.

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I don't think that some of these people were ready to watch us try to dance. It was probably just, they're changed like we're changed.

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Oh my goodness, words cannot express the glory and the joy and the delight of worshiping with those in Uganda.

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There's a lot of issues in that culture. There's a lot of poverty in that culture but I tell you what, I know where I want to gravitate, no offense

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Dave, but I know which section of heaven I'm going to gravitate towards in worship.

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I know, I mean, yeah, it's amazing to see them have nothing but Christ and to worship

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Him with everything that they've got. Glory, glory, glory. Beautiful thing that we need to grab ahold of.

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Not that we need to be African, not that we need to dance. I mean some of us that would be, you know, we don't want to get hurt.

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We don't want to damage anything. So we could take the leaping and jumping, you know, you take that figuratively to whatever it means for us in this culture, but where is our joy?

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Where is our delight? Where is our smile? Where is our enthusiasm for Christ and recognizing the freedom that will indeed be ours?

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And that's what faith and hope really looks like, is realizing we'll be set free. Believing that we'll be set free.

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And if you really believe that, if you believe that that tomb was empty and that that tomb signifies that you will be raised again to new life for eternity, forever and ever and ever.

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Let the problems and the struggles of this life fade away at least for moments every day where you're moved to rejoice.

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You've been saved. Saved from the stubble illustration.

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Saved from the, you know, the winnowing and the throwing up and then the burning of the stuff on the side, but you've been saved from that.

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Oh, recast rejoice. Rejoice like a calf set free and constrained in your own filth and in your own little, little six by two area for however long, and you are going to be fully healed and fully set free.

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Let that start. Let that rejoicing, let that celebration start today. Let's go to the table of communion this morning with hearts of celebration.

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Take a moment this morning to evaluate your own heart. If you have a reverent awe for the name of the

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Lord, if you have a reverent awe for Jesus Christ and you recognize him as your

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Lord and your King and your Savior, you've asked him to forgive you. You've humbled yourself.

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You don't have an arrogant posture. Nobody, nobody should ever step, if you analyze anything about your life before you come to one of these tables, it should just be at least this.

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Do I have an arrogant posture? I would, I would, I would discourage you from coming to any one of these tables with any sense of your accomplishment or something that you have done to please

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God. Let that, deal with that before you come to this table because this is a table of receiving. You don't have anything to bring to this table.

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It is a rejoicing of what has been freely given to you. Come in that posture of humility saying, you know what,

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I got nothing to bring to this equation and he has saved me. He loved me enough to do all of that for me.

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I'm not worthy of it, but he loves me nonetheless. If you can come in that kind of humility, then come to the table and take the cracker to remember his body that was broken for you and take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for you.

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And then you can take that at any time. We don't, we don't all take that together. You can take that back to your chair and talk and pray and then take that as you feel at any time during the song.

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But do so in a remembrance that because of what Christ has done, a dawn is coming. And on that day, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings and you will go out leaping like calves from the stall.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for hope. What a day of hope.

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What a day of remembering hope and faith and trust that these things are true. And for those who are called by your name and those who genuinely have revered you and revered your son.

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Father, I pray that today would be a day of celebrating, a day of rejoicing, and a day that even moves us to go out and share that rejoicing and to be joyful among those who need this message,

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Father. I pray that you would start here with your church with a fervor, with an enthusiasm, with a delight for you, and move out into our circles of influence,

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Father, with delight and joy. As we take communion, I thank you, thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ and for his body broken in my place.

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He paid a price, a penalty I could never pay. So I rejoice and thank you for that and I pray that you would allow celebration to be the result of this gathering this morning.