Well, if you would, open up your copy of God's Word. This morning we will be looking at the book of Malachi, chapter one. If you use the Pew Bible in front of you, it's found on page 801. And as you're turning there, let me pray for our time in God's Word. Father, we pray that by your spirit this morning you would open up the eyes of our hearts so that we might hear your word and apply it to our lives and that it might bear great fruit in our lives. We ask these things in the name of Jesus, amen. Okay, so Malachi 1, we're reading all of chapter one, again, page 801 of the Pew Bible in front of you. Hear now the word of God. the oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, says the Lord. But you say, how have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob's brother, declares the Lord? Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and have left his heritage to jackals of the desert. If Edom says, we are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins, the Lord of hosts says, they may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called the wicked country, and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever. Your eyes shall see this, and you shall say, great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel. A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? Says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests who despise my name. But you say, how have we despised your name? By offering polluted food upon the altar. But you say, how have we polluted you? By saying that the Lord's table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor. Will he accept you or show you favor, says the Lord of hosts. And now entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you, says the Lord of hosts. Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the doors that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain. I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand. For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations. And in every place incense will be offered to my name and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. But you profane it when you say that the Lord's table is polluted and its fruit, that is its food, may be despised. But you say, what a weariness this is, and you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering. Shall I accept that from your hand, says the Lord? Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock and vows it and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations. This is God's word. Well, every year on Christmas Eve, my family, growing up, had the tradition of watching the greatest Christmas movie of all time, the 1946 classic, It's a Wonderful Life, And that movie opens up with this picture of the stars. And there's a conversation between two angels. And they're talking about the protagonist of the movie named George Bailey, who's in great trouble on earth. And so what they do is they call a third angel named Clarence to go to Earth to help out George Bailey. And when Clarence hears about his mission, he asks the logical question. He hears that George Bailey is in trouble, and he asks, is he sick? And the angel responds with something really, really interesting. The angel responds, no, worse. He's discouraged. It's a Wonderful Life is arguing that there is something worse in life than being sick, and it's that of being discouraged, that of having your hope marred. George Bailey, his discouragement at its core is a cynicism. He is cynical and disillusioned with life. And that is very similar to the people that we are confronted here with in Malachi 1. We are presented in Malachi with a people that are cynical and disillusioned. They don't trust God. We're also presented with the people that are apathetic. They also just don't care. They don't care. And so this morning we get to see how our God speaks into hearts of people that are cynical, that are disillusioned, and that are apathetic. So my hope for this message this morning is that for any of you that might be in that sort of mindset, either now or in the future, that this would be a comfort and a challenge to you. That would be my hope. This chapter of First Malachi, there's a lot of different things that we could focus on, but I really wanna drill down on that one theme, that cynical attitude. And so this morning, I have three points I want us to look at. I first want us to look at the cause of Israel's cynicism, and then I want us to look at the effect of Israel's cynicism before looking at God's word for the cynical. So starting off on that first point, the cause of Israel's cynicism. I want to run through some verses just to kind of give you a sense of their mindset. Just to start, a couple observations. The first verse here, the oracle of the word of the Lord. That word oracle in the Hebrew most basically means burden. This is a burden that Malachi is bringing to the people of God here. This is a hard message. And yet Malachi, which means my messenger, is bringing it to his people. So look with me at verse two. God, as he always does, gets right to the heart of the issue. I have loved you. And look what they respond with. How have you loved us? The whole book of Malachi is just time and time after again, questions like this. Again, we see in verse six, when God is asking, where's my honor, where's my fear? They say, how have we despised your name? How have we polluted your table, your altar? And then in verse 13, they say, what a weariness this is. What a weariness to serve God and to do all these sacrifices that he's commanded us to. And they snort at it. So that's their attitude. They are a cynical, disillusioned people. So what happened, right? What's going on here in the book of Malachi that God's people could have such an attitude toward him? Well cynicism almost always is driven by a combination of a misplaced hope and unmet expectations. A misplaced hope and unmet expectations. So you put your hope in something or someone and they or it let you down. And the more and more that you are hurt, the more and more that you might be betrayed and let down, the more and more that you choose cynicism, the more and more that you choose to distrust. And that oftentimes just becomes a pervasive attitude in all of your life. So the question is, what were their expectations? Because they're cynical toward God himself, right? They're cynical toward the God of their creation. So what are they expecting of God that would lead to such a mindset in their life? One thing I wanna do just to kind of root this and really help us understand their expectations is to give a quick history of Israel to this point. If you don't like history, just stick with me for a minute. Maranatha kids, I'm gonna grill you on these dates tonight, so listen up. The book of Malachi, our best guess is that it was written between 460 and 430 BC. Just kind of as a reference point, Socrates is around during that time period. Plato's born in 427. So it's a very late book in the Old Testament. Working our way back to that date. So Israel. Israel is a nation formed out of the 12 tribes of Jacob, the 12 sons of Jacob. Israel grew as a nation in the country of Egypt when they were enslaved. And then God, in his mercy, redeemed them out of Egypt, took them on 40 years in the wilderness where he gave them the law and he gave them his presence in the glory cloud. And then in the time of Joshua, they enter into the promised land. All 12 tribes spread out in the land except for Levi. So they're in the promised land. But then in 930 BC, in part because of the sin of Solomon, they split to two kingdoms. There's a northern kingdom consisting of 10 tribes called Israel, and there's a southern kingdom consisting of two tribes called Judah. Both kingdoms live in great sin against the Lord. So the Lord puts both in exile. The Northern Kingdom is sacked by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC. Southern Kingdom is sacked by the Babylonian Empire and King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. So at that point, 586 BC, both kingdoms are in exile. Not an ideal state for the people of God who are supposed to be in the promised land. Yet something amazing happens in 538 BC. You can read about this in Ezra 1. The Lord stirs up the heart of the king of Persia. So Persia just took over Babylon, so now the people of God are underneath Persian reign. The Lord stirs up King Cyrus to allow the people to return to the land. So they go back to the land in 538. 515, in the book of Haggai, we read that they rebuild the temple. And then in 478, we see that Ezra is sent to restore them to the law of the Lord, to restore their practices. And then in 445, Nehemiah goes to rebuild the walls and rebuild the gates. So we don't know exactly where the people of Malachi might have been. Were they before Ezra and Nehemiah? Were they afterwards? Were they kind of in between? We don't know. But we know that they're back in the land, right? Exile, not good, but God has graciously brought them back in the land, rebuilt the temple, potentially already rebuilt the walls and the gates to the city, and restored worship. So what are they cynical about? What's going on? What has caused their attitude? You're back in the land, you got the temple. Interestingly enough, their expectations in one sense are right on. Listen here from the book of Haggai, chapter two. Again, Haggai, 515 B.C., so 55 to 85 years before the time of Malachi. Listen to this. Who is left among you who saw this house, meaning the temple, in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it as nothing in your eyes? Yet be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations shall come in. Right there, God is saying, you will have economic prosperity. The treasures of the nations will come into the land. He keeps going, and I will fill this house with glory. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former. The glory of this new temple is going to be so much greater than the former glory. There is spiritual blessing coming to these people. And then lastly, they are told, and I will give this place peace. declares the Lord of hosts. They are promised shalom. They are promised the comprehensive peace, peace between people, peace between people and God, but also it implies peace in the kingdom of God, their own political freedom, their own nation. And yet, at this time of Malachi, The glory of the temple is not like what it used to be. It pales in comparison to the former temple, so much so that in Haggai, the people that saw the former one weep and sob at the new one. We learn from Nehemiah, they're poor. They are in ruins. They do not have economic prosperity in the land. They're still under Persian rule. They don't have the national sovereignty that they're waiting on. They don't have that peace that they're waiting on. They were promised to be a huge nation and they're a little group of people. So what they're doing, the people of Malachi in this moment, they're taking God's promises and expecting them in their lifetime. They're presuming upon the timing of the Lord. maybe even convincing themselves that they deserved these promises in their lifetime. And so they think that God has let them down. They perceive that God has not been faithful to his promise because they don't see it yet in the land. So that's the cause of their cynicism. They have presumed upon the Lord's timing. and thought that maybe even they deserved these promises. They weren't willing to wait on the Lord. Now what does that cynicism lead them to? That's our second point. What is the effect of their cynicism? The effect of their cynicism is great apathy. They just don't care anymore. Verse 13, what a weariness this is, and they snort at it. Later on in chapter three, they say it is vain to serve God. It's futile. It's useless to serve God. If that's their mindset, no wonder they're offering blemished sacrifices, right? No wonder. They don't care anymore. And the priests here in verse six are the ones specifically called out, but verse 14 draws together everyone. Everyone is guilty for this sin. They're breaking God's explicit commandments here. At their core, here's what I think that they've done. I think that they have convinced themselves that God has not been faithful to his side of the bargain. God has not been faithful to his covenant. And if that's true, why should I be? If God doesn't love me, why should I love him? Why should I follow his commandments? If he's not upholding his end, why should I uphold mine? Have you ever been driving down the highway and had a cop fly past you but didn't have their lights on? kind of didn't really seem like they were on a particular assignment at the moment either. It just sort of looked like they were speeding. Give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they were on assignment. But when I see that, my first thought is, why do I have to follow the speed limit, right? If the people hired to uphold the law are not even going to follow it, why should I? And also what right do they have to hold me to a standard they're not even following themselves? I think that's exactly what the people of God are doing here. So they just don't care anymore. And so they succumb to all sorts of sins. So if you read through the rest of the book of the Malachi, they are convincing themselves if God is not going to uphold its end of the bargain, why should I offer him my best sacrifices? Why should I not intermarry? Why should I be faithful to the wife of my youth? Why should I treat the poor and the oppressed well? What does it all matter? What does it matter at the end of the day? Who cares? That's the mindset that we see the people in. Have you ever been in a place like that? where God's commandments are just things you're like, I don't care about. I don't want to follow. I don't care anymore. To give an example, one thing that I've seen before, just probably because of my age and stage, is the expectation of marriage. So oftentimes what we do is we take good things, And then we convince ourselves that because it's good and because God's good, therefore we are promised it and we will have it. And maybe even we convince ourselves that we deserve it. So marriage is an incredible thing. Genesis 2, when God creates Adam, he sees that it was not good that man was alone. So he created a helper fit for him. He created Eve. Proverbs 18.22, he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Marriage is a good thing and a great thing to desire. But if we convince ourselves that therefore everyone is promised marriage and we all deserve marriage, we're putting ourselves in a dangerous spot. Because if opportunity after opportunity passes you by, you might choose cynicism. And then if that happens, you might resort to apathy. You just don't care anymore. And so you know that God has commanded that everyone marry in the Lord, that everyone marry Christians, if you are a Christian. But if you don't care anymore, You say, I'm out. I'm going outside of the church to find my spouse. That's where your apathy can lead you. We see that and it's a wonderful life too. George Bailey, all he wanted to do in life was get out of his small town Bedford Falls. He wanted to do something big in the world. He wanted to make an impact. But opportunity after opportunity passes by and he never gets to, and he becomes cynical and disillusioned. So what do we do if that's us? What do we do if we are in that sort of mindset? Transitioning to our third point, what is God's word to the cynical? What is God's word to the disillusioned? What is God's word to the apathetic? First off, he calls them out in their sin, for sure, calls what they're doing evil so that they might recognize that this does greatly matter. But he does two other things. He points them back and he points them forward. He points them back to his love and he points them forward to his glory. Look with me again at verse two. Look how God answers Israel's question, how have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob's brother? God gets right to the heart of the issue. He lovingly, in verses three through five, is going to go on to explain further what he's talking about. He doesn't really need to. That one question conveys everything that they need to know. Is not Esau Jacob's brother? So Esau and Jacob were twins. They were children of Rebekah and Isaac. They were grandchildren of Abraham and Sarah. And in the typical patriarchal system, the firstborn is the one that receives the blessing. The firstborn receives the firstborn rights. And Esau is the firstborn. And this family had been promised incredible blessing. Their grandfather, Abraham, was told, in you, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, and you will receive a land, and you will become a nation, and I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. There is an incredible blessing to be had in this family. And yet, when they're still in Rebekah's womb, the Lord comes to Rebekah and says, there's two nations in your womb. but the older shall serve the younger. The younger one's gonna get the blessing. Jacob is going to get the blessing. Neither of them deserved it, but if one person was going to get it, it would have been Esau. But God in his love and his mercy and his free choice chooses Jacob freely. And so the Lord is pointing back to his free love for them in Jacob and all the blessings that they have had in Jacob up to this point. He has made them a nation and redeemed them and given them the law and given them his presence and given them all of these promises. He points them back to his love. In Christians today, We are just as much sinners as the Israelites. And yet we know that in love, God chose us from before the foundation of the world that we might be His, that we might be adopted as His sons. So we also can look back at the love of God from before time, that if you were in Christ, he chose you. And we can see clearer than they could in the time of Malachi. They can look back and see the redemption in Egypt. We can look back and see the true redemption in Jesus Christ. That God not only loved us so much that he chose us for the foundation of the world, He also sent what was most precious to him to be a sacrifice for our sins. And so God here draws them back, the people in Malachi, to look at Jacob and look at Esau and know how much he has freely loved them and given them mercy upon mercy. So that's the first thing he does, he points them back. Secondly, God points them forward. He points them to his glory. God in this passage, most concerned with one thing, his name. He is most concerned with his name. The destruction of Esau's descendants that we read about in three through five, All of that leads to, verse five, the praising of the Lord's name. Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel. Later on, the polluted sacrifices make the Lord so angry because it's despising his very name. In verse six, God asks, where is my honor? In the Hebrew, that word is glory. Where is my glory? He's asking. Where is my glory? Where is my honor? Rather, you are despising my name. 11, for from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations. And in every place, incense will be offered to my name in a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord. Lastly in 14, for I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations. God is most concerned about his name and about his glory. And he won't stand for it if his name is being despised. So take that as a warning. God does not play around with sin. God does not play around with rebellion when we are breaking his commands. Take that seriously. He calls what they're doing evil. But then what does he do? He points their eyes up. The Israelites here, what they're most concerned about is themselves. They want the blessing. They want what they want. They want it in their time and they're not willing to wait on the Lord to provide. God here is teaching them something and us something. That we are not ultimately here for our own happiness. We're not ultimately here for our own happiness. We are ultimately here for his glory. Isaiah 43, seven. The Lord says, everyone who is called by my name whom I created for my glory. The key to getting out of a cynical mindset, a disillusioned and apathetic mindset, is to get your eyes off yourself and to fix your eyes on the Lord of glory for whom we were created. And it is actually when we start living for His glory that we start actually living. That's how we were created to live, for His glory. The best thing that we can do and the best thing that they can do is live to the glory of God. So God draws their eyes up and points them to Him. He points them to Him in their cynicism. I wanna close with a thought experiment. So if you could travel back in time, and if you could go back to the people in the time of Malachi, so 430, 460 BC, what would you have told them? What would you have told these Israelites that we are met with in this chapter here? I think I would have told them that the glory and the peace that you're choosing to not wait on at the moment, it's coming. And it is going to be greater than anything you could have ever imagined. And you can sit and live out your miserable existence and choose to disobey God, choose to believe lies that he's not faithful and that he doesn't love you, and you'll regret that. Or you can wait on the Lord and trust that our God is always faithful, that our God is a God of love, and he will do what he has said he will do. It won't be in your time, but the glory and the peace are coming. Because 400 years later, In a town in Bethlehem, a baby is born. And on that same night, a multitude of angels appear to some shepherds in a field. And they start praising God, saying, glory to God in the highest. And on earth, peace among those with whom he is well pleased. The glory and the peace are coming. When Jesus came, he was the true temple, the true dwelling place of God on earth, Emmanuel, God with us. When Jesus came, He was the pure sacrifice. The Israelites offering all these blemished ones. Jesus comes and offers up his life as the once and for all perfect sacrifice to secure eternal redemption for the children of God. God in his love, faithful always to his promise, sent his son to be the fulfillment of everything that he had promised in the Old Testament. I would have tried to point them to the glory that comes with Jesus. And this is a message for everyone. Something really interesting happens in verse 11. So in verse 11, God's name is proclaimed among the nations, and then things that only happen at the temple, pure and incense offerings only happen at the temple, will happen in every place in the future. When Jesus came and fulfilled the law and fulfilled the sacrificial system, After that, in His name, from anywhere, people can worship Him. They can offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ in every place. And this blessing is not just for Jacob, it is for the nations. So if you are in here this morning and you would not consider yourself to be a Christian, And you might be asking, where do I fit in this? My Jacob, my Esau, where am I? The promises of Jacob are available to you by faith in Jesus Christ. That if you recognize your sin and turn from it and trust in Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can have forgiveness today You can have life and life to the full today. You can have this peace that God offers today. So I plead with you, come to Jesus if you don't know him yet. And for those of us that do, life's hard. We will suffer in this life and we might not get everything that we desire, We might not get everything that we want. But don't turn to cynicism. Don't turn to apathy. Hold on to hope. God is forever faithful to his promises. And in Jesus Christ, you are loved beyond measure. And that is so much better than anything else that the world can give you. So get your eyes up. and look to his love and look to his glory and seek to live for his glory. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you confessing that all of us at some point in time have chosen to distrust you. Lord, maybe have chosen even to be cynical about you. And that might have even led to an apathetic mindset. Lord, for every room in this heart, I pray that we would know the comfort that comes with your gospel, that we are loved beyond measure in Jesus Christ, and that is all we need, that you are our good shepherd, and we lack nothing in you. Would you lift our eyes to you, Lord? Would you lift our eyes to your glory? Would we know that you are faithful? And would that give us the hope and the perseverance to walk through the struggles of this life and the suffering of this life. May we know that you are with us right now in this moment. Father, we praise you for everything that you have given us in your son. In his name we pray, amen.