1. "Grumbling and complaining say that I deserve better. Impatience says I deserve faster. Lying, I deserve it, so I'll cut corners to get there. Gluttony, lust, sloth, I deserve to feed my flesh. Anger, be it the rageful kind or the icy kind, you deprive me of what I deserve, and so I will punish you."

2. "In a world governed by a sovereign God, every sin is an implicit accusation against God. It says he's not fair."

3. "The wearying of our God is the cost that he gladly pays so that he can show us his mercy. This is the cost of his patience. God delays justice, even opening up himself to the charge of injustice, because he is patient with us."

4. "You know what it's like to be slandered, don't you? Now, what if it wasn't your relative justice being slandered, but the very definition, the perfection of justice? And what if the slander didn't go on for weeks or months or years, but for millennia? And what if you had the ability to put a stop to that slander this moment and vindicate yourself? But you chose to wait."

5. "We deserve only God's justice. But God deserves to be seen as merciful. He deserves to be gloried in as merciful. He deserves to be gloried by people made holy by him. And what he deserves is the ground of all of our hope."

6. "If your definition of justice extends no further than a desire for no applicable laws to be broken, then you will find that God's promise of justice, that it will roll down like waters, will be a pathetic and muddy puddle."

7. "Because God does not change, he has never known a moment of worry. There are no furrows in his brow. He has never experienced fear. Because he does not change, faithlessness is not an option. Failure is impossible. God has not a single unanswered question. He has no uncertain hopes."

8. "How much do I have to give? Has ever and always been the wrong question. It signifies an obligation that defames God because it suggests that there are better things to do with your money."

9. "The principle here is not give to get. It's give to glorify, give to take hold of the promises of Christ, even when they come with persecutions in this life, so that by faith you can show how good and generous and satisfying and delightful this God really is."

10. "The days when God does not seem fair are fertile ground for faith. If you could see his blessings with your own eyes, there would be no need for faith."

Observation Questions

1. In Malachi 2:17, what two specific statements does God say His people have made that have "wearied" Him?

2. According to Malachi 3:1, who are the two figures that God promises to send, and what will the first one do?

3. In Malachi 3:2-3, what two images does the prophet use to describe what the Lord will be like when He comes, and what will be the result of His work on the sons of Levi?

4. What specific sins does God say He will be "a swift witness against" in Malachi 3:5?

5. In Malachi 3:6, what reason does God give for why the children of Jacob "are not consumed"?

6. According to Malachi 3:8-10, how does God say His people have robbed Him, and what does He promise to do if they bring the full tithe into the storehouse?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is the people's question "Where is the God of justice?" (Malachi 2:17) described as wearying to God rather than as a legitimate inquiry? What does this reveal about the difference between righteous lament and sinful accusation?

2. In Malachi 3:1-5, God answers the people's demand for justice by promising His own coming. Why might the question "Who can endure the day of his coming?" (v. 2) be an unexpected and sobering response to those demanding justice?

3. How does the image of a refiner's fire and fuller's soap (Malachi 3:2-3) demonstrate that God's answer to injustice involves both judgment and mercy? What does this reveal about what God "deserves" from His people?

4. What is the significance of God's statement "I the Lord do not change" (Malachi 3:6) serving as the bridge between the promise of judgment in verse 5 and the invitation to return in verse 7? How does God's unchanging nature provide both warning and hope?

5. Why does God respond to the question "How shall we return?" (Malachi 3:7) by addressing their giving rather than other areas of disobedience? What does this suggest about the relationship between our use of money and the condition of our hearts?

Application Questions

1. The sermon identified that a poor response to not getting what we think we deserve underlies much of our sin (grumbling, impatience, anger, etc.). What situation in your life right now tempts you to believe God is being unfair to you, and how might recognizing this as an accusation against God change your response?

2. The passage describes God being "wearied" by His people's complaints. This week, how can you examine whether your prayers and thoughts about difficult circumstances reflect trust in God or accusation against Him? What would it look like to bring the same concerns to God in faith rather than unbelief?

3. Malachi 3:5 lists sins ranging from sorcery to failing to show hospitality to vulnerable people. The sermon noted that using economic power without considering the dignity of others falls under this judgment. What is one specific way you could more intentionally use your financial decisions (purchasing, hiring, tipping, etc.) to love your neighbor this week?

4. The sermon challenged that the question "How much do I have to give?" is always the wrong question because it assumes there are better things to do with our money. Instead, we should ask, "Am I giving enough that it's shaping my heart?" How would you honestly answer that question, and what concrete step might you take to let your giving cultivate greater trust in God?

5. God placed Israel in an arid land so they would learn dependence on Him. What "arid land" circumstance in your life right now—where you cannot see God's provision clearly—might actually be designed to grow your faith? How can you take a specific step of obedience this week even before you see God's blessing?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Deuteronomy 28:1-14, 15-24 — This passage provides the covenant background of blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience that forms the foundation for Israel's expectations and frustrations addressed in Malachi.

2. 2 Peter 3:3-13 — Peter addresses the same accusation that God delays justice, explaining that His patience is meant to lead people to repentance rather than being evidence of unfaithfulness.

3. Titus 2:11-14 — This passage describes how Christ came to purify for Himself a people zealous for good works, fulfilling the refining work promised in Malachi 3:2-3.

4. Mark 10:28-31 — Jesus promises that those who sacrifice for His sake will receive a hundredfold in this life (with persecutions) and eternal life, showing the New Covenant fulfillment of God's promised blessings that differs from Old Testament material prosperity.

5. Philippians 4:14-19 — Paul describes the Philippians' giving as a fragrant offering pleasing to God and promises that God will supply all their needs, illustrating the New Testament pattern of generous, faith-filled giving.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Universal Struggle When We Don't Get What We Think We Deserve

II. Our Accusation: God Is Not Just (Malachi 2:17)

III. God's Answer: He Will Secure Justice for Himself (Malachi 3:1-5)

IV. God's Reassurance: He Does Not Change (Malachi 3:6)

V. Our Response: Repentance and Faith (Malachi 3:7-12)

VI. Living by Faith in the Arid Lands of Life

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Detailed Sermon Outline

A few weeks ago, I'd had about two weeks of work without a day off, and I was really looking forward to an unscheduled afternoon. And I clipped a corner a little too tight in my car and blew out my tire, and spent my afternoon getting the tire fixed instead. I didn't get what I thought I deserved, and I was disappointed. Recently, a friend of mine didn't get what I thought he deserved, and I really struggled with that. I remember in the years before I became a pastor, working in business, being passed over for a big promotion that I thought I deserved, and I was angry.

Even in marriage, the refrain, I deserve better, can course through my head in an argument. I'm a wonderful husband. You've told me that a thousand times. How dare you be mad at me. I deserve better.

And I've felt this in much weightier moments of my life, as I'm sure have you.

So how do you respond when you don't get something you think you deserve?

I'd be willing to guess that a poor response to that underlies much of your sin.

Grumbling and complaining say that I deserve better. Impatience says I deserve faster. Lying, I deserve it, so I'll cut corners to get there. Gluttony, lust, sloth, I deserve to feed my flesh. Anger, be it the rageful kind or the icy kind, You deprive me of what I deserve, and so I will punish you.

Adultery and theft, very simply, I deserve that.

You see, in a world governed by a sovereign God, every sin is an implicit accusation against God. It says he's not fair. Right? For some of us, the question our passage poses this morning Where is the God of justice? is on our lips almost verbatim.

For others, we may have to dig a little deeper to figure out where it is, but I think it's a question we are all prone to ask. So what is your response when you don't get what you deserve and God seems unfair? This morning we're going to be spending our time at the very end of chapter 2 in the Book of Malachi and the beginning of 3, which you'll find on page 802 of your pew Bibles. I'd say our passage is a bit like a divinely led therapy session, as God takes our questions or accusations about His justice and works them through to show us what we should do with them. And this is a therapy session that's going to have four parts, which is our outline for this morning.

First is our accusation that God is not just. 17 of chapter two, then God's answer that he will secure justice for himself, chapter three, verses one to five. Third, God's reassurance that he does not change, verse six. And fourth, our response, verses seven to 12 in chapter three, repentance and faith. So our accusation, God's answer, God's reassurance, and our response.

So let's start there in verse 17 of chapter 2 in our first point, our accusation, that God is not just.

You know, this is a passage which is full of drama. There are twists and turns along the way we would never foresee. So I'm not gonna give it to you all at once, so I hope you've been reading it this week. I'm gonna feed it to you just a bit at a time so we can experience that drama together, which I think will help us to explore and correct our own hearts and our own view of God. So here's chapter 2 verse 17.

You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, How have we wearied him? By saying, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them, or by asking, Where is the God of justice?

Let's start with some context. A thousand years before Malachi prophesies, God had told his people in the book of Deuteronomy that if they obeyed his commands, he would bless them. But if he disobeyed them, he would curse them and exile them from the land he was giving them.

But on top of all that, he said something else. He said that when they rebelled and were exiled from the land, not if but when, and when they repented, he would return them to the land. And as he says, I will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers, and he would turn their hearts back to him. And as you read through the histories of the Old Testament, that's exactly what happened. They rebelled, they were exiled, 70 years later they returned, and they worked really hard in that repentance.

They got rid of their idol worship, as we saw last week. And so they were ready to receive this promised prosperity, but it didn't come. And as time went on, they grew bitter against God, which is where the book of Malachi enters, the last prophet of the Old Testament. God's people were looking at their idol-worshipping neighbors like in Egypt. Well, they're doing just fine.

Their overlords in Persia seem blessed. But God seems to have abandoned his people, the noble, righteous ones, implication with, I think, no small degree of frustration thrown in, verse 17, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them. Right, kick off the pity party.

Do you see how honest the Bible is? The Bible does not condone this logic, but it addresses it because this is so often where we live. But if you're here and you're not familiar with the Bible, I think you might be surprised at how honest it is as you get into it about the human condition and how willing God is to stoop to our level to help us with our objections, even against him, even the sinful objections. But the Bible is honest about where we're at, It's also honest about where we fail, right? This is no dysfunctional therapy session where everything you say is affirmed and agreed with.

No, God is honest about how the incessant distrust of his people has wearied him, which is an interesting concept, isn't it? I wonder if you have wearied the Lord with your words. Even this week. I wonder if you've ever even thought about that as a possible category. The Psalms are full of righteous complaint.

That's one reason why we sometimes actually, instead of that prayer of confession that Tanakh led us in, have a prayer of lament in our services to model how we can rightly present our complaints to God. But just because we see righteous complaints in the Bible doesn't mean that all complaining is righteous. But the difference between those two is one of faith. Do you bring your complaints to God in the context of faith? I trust you, Lord, and this is really hard.

Or like these people in the context of unbelief, God, you've cheated me. Because I assure you, God knows the difference.

And yet, The wearying of our God is the cost that he gladly pays and so that he can show us his mercy. Right, this is the cost of his patience. God delays justice, even opening up himself to the charge of injustice, 2 Peter 3 says, because he is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Do you see what God's patience costs him? Every complaining Christian, every scoffing atheist, every sin, every doubt spews lies about his goodness and faithfulness and justice.

You know what it's like to be slandered, don't you? You know how that feels. Now, what if it wasn't your relative justice being slandered, but the very definition, the perfection of justice? And what if the slander didn't go on for weeks or months or years, but for millennia? And what if you had the ability to put a stop to that slander this moment and vindicate yourself?

But you chose to wait. So that you could be patient with the very ones who are slandering you. That is the faintest hint, my friends, of what God's patience for us costs God. As for now, he lets us weary him with our slanderous nonsense.

But God's not going to let that accusation go unanswered forever, which just brings us to our second point. God's answer Justice for God. We'll pick up our text in chapter three.

Verse one, Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap.

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

Well, in accusation to this question, where's the God of justice? The Lord of justice says he is about to come. He will send His messenger first, the prophet Elijah, we discover in Malachi chapter 4, who Jesus identifies as John the Baptist, the Elijah who was to come. And then the Lord Himself will come suddenly to His temple, the messenger of the covenant in whom they delight. These two figures, the Lord and the messenger of the covenant, are one and the same, as you see by how verse 2 refers to them in the singular.

God himself coming to his people. I assume the immediate context these people would have had in mind was Ezekiel 43, where God promises to return to his temple. And its most immediate fulfillment would have been Jesus clearing the temple, something that was so momentous it's recorded in all four gospels. Jesus' visit to the temple was a visit of judgment. That was a very small foretaste of the judgment that was to come.

As if Malachi is saying, oh, you want the God of justice to appear? You wicked people who scoff at God's laws and despise his worship, you really want him to come? Very well, but verse 2, who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? And so, I think we would expect Malachi then to describe a scene of awful judgment as the Lord of justice comes.

But that's not what we get. No, the people deserve that. We deserve that.

But that's not what God deserves. It's true that he is a God of justice and he deserves to be seen and glorified and honored as a God of justice. As God revealed himself to Moses in Exodus 34, he will by no means clear the guilty. But my friends, he is also merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. And he deserves for that mercy to be known as well.

This is the glory of our God, my friends, both justice and merciful. So at my kids' swim meet yesterday, there was a little boy who was freaking out at the starting line and yelling at his mom, I hate you. You never let me do anything I want.

Now what that boy deserved was to receive correction from his parents. But his mom deserved a lot more than that, didn't she? Right? What she deserved, which is only in the pipe dreams of most moms, is for him to stand back up and say back to the crowd, My mom's so much better than what I said. She really does love me.

She's wonderful. She's the awesomest mom ever.

Right, we deserve only God's justice. But God deserves to be seen as merciful. He deserves to be gloried in as merciful. He deserves to be gloried by people made holy by him. And what he deserves is the ground of all of our hope.

And so when the Lord appears, Malachi says, he appears not merely to judge, but to purify. That's what we see there in verses 2 and 3. We see that even in this reference to him is the message of the covenant in verse 1. What covenant is this? Well, it can't be the covenant with Moses and the patriarchs that he talked about earlier, the covenant of Levi, because he doesn't reference either of those even though they're the immediate context.

No, it's the covenant that's subsumed both of those, the new covenant that God gives. Where he turns his people's hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. And so it is new covenant realities that Malachi describes here starting in verse 2.

When Jesus came, as we saw a few weeks ago in our sermon on Titus 2, he came to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. I think that's exactly what he's talking about here in verses 2 and 3, refining silver burning up the dross, washing wool, rinsing away the dirt, so that, end of verse three, the worship of God's people is righteous at last.

God deserves a pure people, and that's what he's doing. Purification implies both the restoration of what's good and the judgment of what's bad, which is what we see there in verses four and five. We'll take each of them in turn, starting in verse four.

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem would be pleasing to the Lord as it was in days of old and as in former years.

That's the New Covenant reality of God recreating his people so they might rightly worship him. Then, God says, the offering of his people, Judah, centered at the temple in Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord. Which is exactly what Jesus Christ has done for us, isn't it? In the New Testament, we see that Christ is the acceptable sacrifice before God that freed us from the penalty of sin so that we might have access to God through true worshiped sinners, though we are. And Malachi points yet to more.

Right, because of Christ's sacrifice, our sacrifices can also be pleasing to God. I'm just giving the focus Malachi is about to have on giving. My mind goes to Philippians 4:18 where Paul describes the gift of the Philippian church as a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. So Christ has not only freed us from the penalty of sin through his sacrifice, he has also freeing us present tense from the power of sin by making us holy through his spirit so that our good works, as imperfect as they may be, can please him.

And these verses in Malachi point ahead even further, right by describing Jesus' first coming, our minds immediately go to His second coming when He will free us even from the presence of sin, where the reality of verse 4 is complete.

That is the hope of the gospel. Right, because we are not holy people today, are we? We're sinners. We're sinful in ways that we know, we're sinful ways we don't know, but God does. And our sin slanders God.

As I said earlier, every sin slanders God. That's actually the thing that is most evil about every sin.

And he will not put up with that.

So the penalty of sin, because he is so good, is eternal death. And yet, as I mentioned earlier, he deserves to have a people for his very own. And so in his mercy, he sent his son Jesus to live the life we should have lived, to die the death we should have died in our place so that we can be forgiven of our sins, so that we can be purified and made holy, so that we can be freed from the penalty of sin. And from its power and someday from its presence. And we take hold of that through repentance and faith, which we get to in a little bit, as we put our trust in Him, not our own attempts to clean up our act, but in Him entirely, and as that faith shows itself through a changed life.

But not all are made pure, which is a sobering message of verse 5. Then, verse 4, said, the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing, and also then, verse 5, I will draw near to you for judgment. Let me give you a few notes about this verse.

First, you see a list of sins here. They move from lists of commission to lists of sins of omission, from sorcery on the one hand, demonically using God instead of serving Him, to a failure, to a failure of Jeremiah's hospitality. And this verse moves from what we would consider to be grievous sins, sorcery and adultery, to what honestly we might pass over as not that bad, not using our economic power to love, not showing hospitality, all of which can be summed up in the fear of God. And this is one of those lists in the Bible which is designed to snag all of us at some point in time.

Right, do you use God as a vending machine? Giving only in order to get, for example? Well, that is the essence of sorcery. What about that prohibition against adultery? Jesus was clear that we can so easily break the heart of that command.

Swearing falsely, I think the law court is primarily in view, but all sin is-- but all lying is sin.

Oppressing the higher worker in his wages, that term isn't being used merely to describe failing to pay what you promised, but taking advantage of your position of purchasing power to pay less than what's fair.

I wonder for all of us, does the way we use our money respect the dignity of those who are vulnerable. The price set by the intersection of supply and demand may be legal, but it's not always the obedience to Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself. In Malachi's reference to the widow and the fatherless and the sojourner, the immigrant foreigner, further emphasizes God's care for those who are vulnerable economically.

The Bible never endorses a Marxist equality of outcomes in this life, which means that it recognizes there will be inequalities of power, but it certainly expects godly stewardship of that power.

In a large economy like the one we live in, that power can be very hidden, right? So who is the hired worker you just hire when you click buy now on Amazon? But that power is real, and stewardship for that power is real. As well, just like it was for the people of this day, even if it is prime week this week.

If your definition of justice extends no further than a desire for no applicable laws to be broken, then you will find that God's promise of justice, that it will roll down like waters, will be a pathetic and muddy puddle. I'm very intentionally giving you no specific guidance for how to apply Malachi's principle here because determining how to do this, how to do what's loving in a complex and interconnected economy like ours is complex, especially where wages influence employment. But do not hide from that complexity as you inform your conscience with Malachi's words because they are very clear. Just because an option is available in a free market does not mean that it is loving.

And there's an implication here for those of us today who feel like we are under the thumb of economic unrighteous power. If you are there, know that God sees and God knows and God cares. That in no way exonerates those who oppress you, maybe oppressing you simply by their own privileged indifference, but it does remind you of the one who descended from heaven to earth to live under the hand of oppression so that he might rescue us from the oppression of the devil. And it reminds us that the justice this one is bringing is full and wonderful and complete.

So I hope as you look at these five verses in the beginning of chapter 3, I hope you see yourself here.

Like the people of Malachi's day, we also wait for the messenger of the covenant. And as Jesus' first coming was predicted with clarity, and yet sudden, so will be his second coming. So my friends, do not wait until you hear that final trumpet to hide yourselves in the safe arms of Jesus. The flood of God's righteous wrath against the injustice and oppression of this world is coming. The flood of God's righteous wrath against the injustice and oppression of your own life is coming, my friends.

We cry out for justice. We cannot endure true justice. If you've ever been whitewater kayaking or canoeing, you know the power of an eddy, right? Water is rushing through the rapids, you're exhausted, you need a rest so you squeeze behind a rock and enjoy its calm as the floods pour down.

Shelter yourself behind the rock of Christ so that when justice pours down the justice that no man but Christ can endure, that he will cover you.

But God's answer to their accusation is grounded in more than just the future. It's also grounded in his presence timeless, unchanging character, which is our third point, God's reassurance that He does not change. Verse 6, For I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore, you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

It's a short verse.

Boy, is it a powerful verse. Right, this is the bridge between the promised judgment of verse five and the promised mercy we're gonna go to in a little bit. You saw at the top of your bulletin that word immutable. We worship our immutable God. It's just a word that means unchanging.

That's what God describes here. He is unchanging in His justice, but contrary to the accusation we just dealt with, which is why his people are under duress, but he is also unchanging in his mercy, which is why they are not consumed. This is a verse that could very easily be translated in two different ways. What you see in your pew Bible is a good translation, I, the Lord, do not change, therefore you are not consumed, which emphasizes the unchanging nature of his mercy. But you could also read it this way: I, the Lord, do not change, and yet you are not consumed, emphasizing the unchanging nature of his justice.

Right? You translate this into English and you've got to pick one of those two, but the original allows us to sit comfortably in the ambiguity of both. And here at the bridge point of the passage, I have to wonder whether Malachi intends us to read it as both. God's unchanging character is the guarantee both of his justice and of the mercy we need. As Charles Spurgeon wrote of this verse, God is unchanging in his essence, in his attributes, his plans, his promises, his threatenings, and the ones he loves.

Right, he is unchanging in his essence, his attributes, his plans, his plans, his promises, his threatenings, and the ones he loves.

Do you see how much of our hope is rooted in this idea that God does not change, that he exists outside of time?

Because God does not change, He has never known a moment of worry. There are no furrows in his brow. He has never experienced fear.

Because he does not change, faithlessness is not an option. Failure is impossible. God has not a single unanswered question. He has no uncertain hopes.

The truth that we depend on, be it moral or scientific or historical, the truth does not change because God does not change. Right, so you may wake up one day this week and doubt the justice of God. You may wake up one day this week and have questions about God's mercy. But my friends, what this truth tells us is that his justice and his mercy are the same on that day as they were the day that he raised Jesus from the dead. The day, as the psalmist puts it, that righteousness and peace kissed one another.

And they are the same on that day as in the day when he will return, when God will make all things new, and we will look at it all and we'll see, Yes, you were just. Yes, you are good.

And this unchanging God offers one unchanging way for sinners to be reconciled to himself, and that is through faith in his dear son, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So if you're here today and you are not a Christian, I hope you're here every week. You're very welcome here. But I will want to tell you that because God is unchanging, you will never get a better offer to be freed from your sin. Because God is unchanging, you cannot get a better offer.

God does not change, but you change. Your circumstances may change and you may lose forever the opportunity you have right now to find yourself reconciled to your Creator. So why would you delay coming to Him?

Which leads to our last point, our response. Our response to God's unchanging justice and mercy is repentance and faith. We pick up Malachi there in verse 7 of chapter 3.

From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

But you say, How shall we return? Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me. But you say, How have we robbed youd in your tithes and contributions? You are cursed with a curse, for your are robbing Me, the whole nation of youf.

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and thereby put Me to the test, says the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need, I will rebuke the devourer for you so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of Hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of Hosts.

These people may think that they've cleaned up their act, but God says, no, no. From the days of your fathers who worshiped that golden calf until now, you have not kept my law. And so God makes them this astounding promise in verse 7, Return to me, and I will return to you. It's like Jesus' parable of the prodigal son. The son has squandered his father's wealth, scorned his father's love, slandered his father's name, and yet that father is waiting with open arms so that the moment that son returns, that father will run and return to him.

Promises like this are all through the Bible, and they're promises that We have. They're made to us. Right, because their promise is powered by the atoning work of Jesus Christ. When we reach out our weak arms to him, he promises to wrap us in his strong embrace because that is the affection and the acceptance that Jesus purchased for us at the cross.

But what do these people say in response to such a glorious invitation? How shall we return? End of verse 7, which I think we should hear in a very cynical tone, just like every other question they've asked in this book has been cynical in its nature.

And what's God's answer to such a cynical question? How shall we repent? He says, Just do what's right with your giving. Livestock and produce for them, money for us. And what graphic language Malachi uses here?

He says that they are robbing him, right? Robbing him. When we take for ourselves, it rightly belongs to him. The apostle Paul asks you, what do you have that you did not receive? Everything you have belongs to God.

Your money, to be sure, the things that purchased, the job that gave it to you, the skills and education that gave you that job, the life and health and abilities that gave you that education, he's the source of all of it.

And so he is the owner of all of it. There's no such thing as, you know, God's got 10% and I get the other 90%. It all belongs to him and we should use it all for him. That doesn't mean you give everything away, at least not normally, but you should use all that you have to honor and obey and glorify him.

Right, so pay your rent because by doing that, you're making good on your word, you're obeying his command not to be dependent on others, you're obeying his command to be hospitable, go on a trip, enjoying it with thanksgiving, and thereby bringing glory to the one who made that part of the world you hadn't seen before, give to your church, investing in gospel promises. Lots of ways we can do this, but everything we own belongs to him and we give it to him, we use it for his purposes, anything less he says is robbing him. And I just find it so fascinating that when asked how to repent, God begins with their giving. Verse 10, Bring the full tithe into the storehouse. Right, lots of commands in the Bible they're disobeying, so why pick this one of all of them?

I suspect it has something to do with what Jesus said that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Giving reveals a heart of faith, which is why the response that God calls for is not merely a call for repentance, but repentance and faith. And you see that right here in their circumstances. God's people are hungry, their crops are failing, they're impoverished, And God is saying that before they received his promised blessing, they need to first be faithful with the little they do have. And that requires a lot of faith.

It makes me think of Elijah telling the starving widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17, First, use your last flour to make a cake for me, and then God will provide an abundance. And she, showed that faith, and God provided that abundance. It makes me think of the story Caleb told the other week in the church history class about how this church chose to fire a faithless pastor in the early 90s, knowing that may well be the last nail in the coffin in the life of our church, but they did it because it was the right thing to do, and they trusted God with the results.

Faith, not expedience. We see reference to that faith even there in verse 8 when God says they're robbing him by failing to bring both the tithe and the contribution. Where the tithe was the required gift of 10%, the contributions were voluntary gifts above and beyond that, and here God demands both.

Why? Because he doesn't want your tithe if it's heartless. He doesn't want to check the box, I gave 10%, now I can turn to what I really care about.

10% doesn't represent the beginning or end of obligation, either in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. God, Paul says, loves a cheerful giver. His interest is not a handout from you as if he needs anything from you. He wants your heart.

In the same way, when the pastor of this church encouraged you to give, it's not because we want your money, certainly not because God needs your money. No, we do that because that's what's good for your heart. Which means the question, how much do I have to give? Has ever and always been the wrong question. The wrong question in the Old Testament is the wrong question in the New Testament.

How much do I have to give? Signifies an obligation that defames God because it suggests that there are better things to do with your money, but because you're a righteous person, you're gonna do what you have to instead of a delight to invest in the promises of God. So how much should you give? I'll ask you a question in return. Are you giving enough that it's shaping your heart?

Now there's a lot of people in this church who are young, maybe you've got your first job and you've never really thought about money.

In which case, I would remind you of two things we see here in this passage. Number one, God doesn't want you to give because he needs the money, but he wants you to give because he wants your heart. In the years when you have so little or maybe the best years of your life, to do just that. And second, that giving was the very first way that Malachi told these people to pursue God, I might suggest that for you as well. If you want to think more about giving, you could go to our church website, find a sermon I preached from Philippians 4 back in 2019 called On Giving, or I'll be selling books, no, I'm not.

I'll have copies of a book on giving in the back if you'd like to get one from me for free after the service.

The pattern in Scripture is that if we have income, we should normally give. Give generously, give substantially, give enough that it affects your heart. And kids, you have some money sometimes, as money comes in, protect your heart by giving it away. Look at your money and tell it, I don't believe you're a liar that you'll make me happy because Jesus is the one who makes me happy so I'm gonna give you to him. Moms and dads, are you teaching and modeling for your kids not that we give merely but why we give so that both you and they can become cheerful givers?

And look at the astounding promises that God makes here if they will give. Verse 10, He will open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. He will rebuke the one destroying their crops, and that astounding invitation as well, thereby put me to the test.

To understand that promise and invitation, we need some context. Back in Deuteronomy, God had promised material prosperity for obedience because the nation's purpose as a light to the Gentiles around them was wrapped up in the prosperity of their land. I quoted one of those promises earlier in the sermon. So when God says, 'Thereby put me to the test,' that invitation is backed by his promise, a very specific promise. We should put God to the test regarding promises he has made to us.

We should not put God to the test regarding promises we wish he had made to us. Just like Jesus pointed out, when he was tempted in the desert. And unlike old Testament Israel, we do not have the same promise given to us because material prosperity does not have the same spiritual significance for us as it did for these people. No, we have something far better. We have Jesus' promise that there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake or for the gospel.

Who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first. We get the family of God in this life, we get eternal life in the age to come. That is far better than a bunch of cows and chickens on your land. So when a so-called Christian teacher quotes these verses in Malachi to say that if you give to his or her ministry, God God will bless you financially, they are lying to you.

They're putting God to the test for promises God has not made. They're telling you to cash a check that God didn't sign. They're telling you to grab a bungee cord that doesn't exist.

Which leaves well-meaning people impoverished and the precious gift of faith broken and battered. Right, that give to get mentality, the prosperity gospel, has a lot more in common with the sorcery of verse 5, than with the faith of verse 10.

And it well, this very specific promise is not ours to claim. Everything it says about God is ours to claim. It says he is gracious. He is generous. But because of their disobedience, God had cursed their land, like he said back in chapter 2.

That word in verse 9, translated curse in your Bible, marah, is only ever used in Scripture to refer to the curse that God threatened in Deuteronomy if the people broke covenant with him.

If you think back to the book of Ruth, it's the name that Naomi took on herself, Mara, as her life became a living parable of all of this.

Before, that is, God rained down blessing on her like she never knew to ask for.

Their land is cursed, it says, but if they repent, God will open the windows of heaven for them.

Another interesting term, but windows of heaven only ever use one other place in Scripture, where God opens the windows of heaven in Genesis 7 to drown the world with a flood. An overwhelming curse, Malachi says, is turned into an overwhelming blessing. And there's more, right? Their land, which is an object of ridicule, will be a land of delight, a land that testifies to the wisdom and power of their God, fulfilling God's promises to Abraham, fulfilling the purpose of the people of Israel. Brothers and sisters, God delights to bless his people, just like he delighted to bless Naomi.

He is overwhelming in his generosity. And when he withholds blessing, as he did here in Malachi's day, it is only to give us something better. Will you tell the world about this generous God? The principle here is not give to get, It's give to glorify, give to take hold of the promises of Christ, even when they come with persecutions in this life, so that by faith you can show how good and generous and satisfying and delightful this God really is.

And with that we should conclude.

When God called his people from Egypt to the Promised Land, He called them from a land that was reliably watered by the regular flowing of the Nile and its flooding to an arid land where they were dependent for their prosperity, for their very livelihood on rains that only God could send. And in Deuteronomy, God told them that was no accident. He did that precisely so that they would have to learn to live by faith. So I wonder about you. Are you in an arid land where you are dependent for your very lifeblood on God?

Good. That's the pathway to joy. That's the pathway to delight where your life shows this world the blessing of being His.

You see, my friends, the days when God does not seem fair are fertile ground for faith. If you could see his blessings with your own eyes, there would be no need for faith. So when your heart accuses God of injustice in ways big and small, remember these words in Malachi: Lift your gaze to God's future answer. That he will secure justice, but in the most magnificent way imaginable, that through the death of his Son, he will do that by purifying for himself a people who are his very own. Set your gaze on his unchanging character, that his promises are always yes and amen in Christ.

And as you do, take every step of faith you see in front of you and through your continued repentance, live a life that honors him.

So where does that leave us? I think it leaves us to summarize with an invitation to take and give. Take God at His Word, that though His purposes may not seem fair to your feeble eyes right now, He is in His unchanging goodness accomplishing something glorious through hardship He's making us holy.

And give. Faith in his purposes is not merely refrained from complaining against God, it steps forward to worship him with all that we have and to lay it as his feet. So take from him in faith and give to him in faith, that you may find the delight of being his and that he may be glorified through you.

Let's pray. Oh, our most merciful God, it is a stunning thought to consider what this world would be like if you were not merciful. And yet you are, and you are generous in your mercy. Father, we pray for those here this morning who do not have their faith placed in Christ, that you would shower mercy upon them. And even today, they would discover the delight of being your children.

Father, we pray that we would all put our faith in youn. That it would show up in things as small and seemingly meaningless as our giving, so that by faith we would enjoy youy and by faith we would glorify youy. Father, would you pray this in the name of Jesus, amen.