Opening our Hearts to the
Refiner’s Fire
Selections from Malachi
This morning we do not have a formal sermon. What we are going to
do is to allow the Word of God to call us into repentance in five
different areas of our life. For each of these five areas, we
will have a proclamation of God’s Word, a brief application, a
time of silent prayer, and then a song of prayerful worship. So
let us seek after God this morning with all our heart, mind, soul, and
strength, and allow the Holy Spirit to fill us afresh and reignite
God’s fire in our life.
Let us pray…
All our Bible passages this morning come from the Old Testament book
called Malachi, named after the prophet. Now here is the setting
in which Malachi originally proclaimed God’s Word. The
people of Israel had spent 70 years in captivity in Babylon. God
had finally delivered them, and under the leadership of Ezra and
Nehemiah, the defensive walls around Jerusalem were built, and the
temple worship with all its grace-channeling sacrifices was
restored.
Such conditions should have fostered in the people an attitude and
lifestyle of gratitude, worship, and wholehearted service to God.
Instead, most hearts were indifferent or resentful toward God. So
God raised up the prophet Malachi to call the people back to passionate
worship, faithful prayer, and joyful service.
Call to Repentance:
Malachi 3:1-4
God’s Words in Malachi serve as a timeless call to God’s
people. I invite you now to put your heart in a posture of
vulnerable openness and total surrender to the Holy Spirit. Let
Christ through the Word, prayer, and worship, reignite God’s fire
in your heart of passionate worship, persevering prayer, total
surrender, and wholehearted obedience.
Igniting the Fire of God’s Love
God’s Charge Against
Us: “How have you loved us?”
Mal
1:1-2
Now even though God had delivered His people from captivity, and had
brought them back to Jerusalem, life was not easy. They were
still under the political dominion of Persia. Harvests were poor
and subject to locust damage. So because times were hard, the
people began to question God’s love for them. God answered
them by reminding them that they were His chosen people.
What about you and me? There are three applications to this
divine confrontation. In times of trial, it is to be expected,
that our hearts will entertain some questions about how God chooses to
extend His love to us. Something in us says, “I know I am
God’s child, I know He loves me, and always wants the best for
me, so why is life so blasted hard sometimes?” Most of us
don’t actually doubt God’s love. But surely, we may
grumble that God’s plans for us so often include sorrow and
struggle.
A second application of this passage, is that it might be that someone
here this morning is deeply questioning God’s goodness and love
because the trial you are facing is so unbearable.
A third application of this passage applies to us all. In the
book of Revelations, Christ confronts His people and declares,
“you have left your first love.” As we serve Christ
for many years, each of us can allow the busyness, the materialism, the
things of this world to cause our love of God to weaken, to grow cold,
or at least to become lukewarm.
Let us take a minute now in silent prayer to ask God’s
forgiveness for any way we may grumble that God allows trials in our
life, or for any way we ever question God’s goodness, plans, or
love. And let us also invite the Holy Spirit to ignite within us
a strong, deep, passionate love for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Worship Response:
“Here is Love”
Igniting the Fire of Passionate
Worship
God’s Charge Against
Us: “How have we defiled you?”
Mal 1:6-14
God had given to His people very specific instructions on how to
worship God in a way that pleased Him. He desired that the people
would bring to worship their very best. Instead, they were
bringing to the temple blind, diseased, and crippled animals. The
attitude in their hearts when they came to worship was, “O what a
burden it is to have to come to worship, and to stay so
long!” Because of this, God declared that their worship was
equivalent to “lighting useless fires” as their worship did
not rise to heaven as pleasing to God.
It doesn’t require much explanation to see how this charge by God
about worship can apply to us. Bringing to God our best in
worship has nothing to do with offering the most polished, professional
worship possible.
It has everything to do with worshipping God with all our heart, mind,
emotions, and passion. If we express more passion about a sports
game than in worship, or if we are more excited about engaging in our
favorite recreation than worshipping God, we have a heart
problem. And our worship is lighting useless fires!
Let us take a minute now in silent prayer to ask God’s
forgiveness for any way in which we do not worship God with all our
heart, mind, emotions, and passions. And let us also invite the
Holy Spirit to ignite within us the fire of passionate worship.
Worship Response:
“Here I am to Worship”
Igniting the Fire of Persevering Prayer
God’s Charge Against
Us: “Why?’” (Does God not answer our prayers)
Mal 2:10-16
The people of Israel were violating God’s Holy Law in many
ways. Two ways that God found particularly detestable were that
they were intermarrying with the surrounding pagan nations, and they
were engaging in indiscriminate, rampant divorce, which God says,
“He hates!” So here they were, living in willful sin,
and then engaging in prayer pleading with God to bless their life, and
furious because God wasn’t answering their prayers.
We must be careful whenever we say that sin causes unanswered
prayer. Often such teaching comes from a way of thinking that
fails to acknowledge that none of us can every reach a place where
there is not sin in our life. Every thing we do is polluted with
sin.
What impedes prayer from being answered is not sin, but un-confessed
and un-repented of sin. The Christian that pleases God is not the
one free from sin, as that is impossible, but the one who lives in a
perpetual posture of repentance, confession, growth, and calling out to
God for holiness.
We cannot live in habitual, willful sin, and then expect God’s
blessing of answered prayer. For example, couples who are living
together before marriage simply cannot expect God to bless that
relationship. Men or woman who are engaging in any kind of sexual
behavior outside of marriage, fantasy or real, simply should not expect
God to answer their prayers.
If you are engaging in any known sin repeatedly, and not seeking
freedom, your prayers will be ineffectual. However, if you are
struggling with a deeply rooted sinful habit, and honestly and
wholeheartedly seeking God’s freedom, God will bless your life
and will answer your prayers
Now this is critical brothers and sisters. Our Lord powerfully
and clearly revealed to the Vision Team this week, that God is calling
us to be a House of Prayer. If our prayers as a body are to bear
fruit for God’s glory, now is the time for each of us to allow
God to bring healing and freedom to every area of our life. If
you have any area of your life that you feel stuck, please come see me,
and let’s get a hold of God’s power and freedom!
Let us take a minute now in silent prayer to ask God for the desire to
really want to be completely free from our habitual sin, and for
forgiveness for any sin to which we cling. And let us also invite
the Holy Spirit to ignite within us the fire of persevering prayer.
Worship Response:
“How Great is Our God”
Igniting the Fire of Total Surrender
God’s Charge Against
Us: “How do we rob you?”
Mal 3:6-12
Under the Old Covenant that the nation of Israel was under, they were
required to bring ten percent of all their herds and harvest into the
temple as an act of worship, obedience, and service to God. These
offerings were used in three ways: for animal sacrifice, as food and
payment for the priests, and to be distributed to the widows and
poor. The people were simply not bringing the full ten percent to
the temple, and God was furious!
Here again, we must be very careful about applying Old Covenant Law to
our New Covenant Christianity. We no longer live under the Old
Testament system wherein obedience guarantees specific blessings, and
disobedience guarantees specific cures. Grace has replaced the
Law. Obedience is now done in the power of the Holy Spirit and
out of love for God. I caution you to reject any teaching that
uses this passage to say that if you tithe the full ten percent you are
guaranteed material blessing.
No where in the New Testament do you even find the command to
tithe. Christ’s reframing of the Old Covenant Law always
demanded more from us, not less. For example, instead of just
murder being sin, Christ tells us to even think someone a fool or an
idiot is equivalent to murder! Likewise, New Testament teaching
on giving calls us to give far more than 10 percent of our money.
If calls us to come and die! Christ calls us to total surrender
of every area of our life!
When it comes to financial giving, we should not think in terms of 10
percent being God’s and the rest is ours. We should think
of every penny and every possession being God’s, and whatever God
allows us to keep after we give it all to Him, we’ll accept with
gratitude and use wisely. The 10 percent figure should serve as
the bare minimum of what we give to the work of God through a local
congregation. Then on top of that, we should be giving generous
offerings to other ministries.
How you give financially to Kingdom work is one of the clearest
measurements of how much you are committed to God and how much you love
God. Half-hearted commitment and lukewarm love always shows up in
stingy giving!
However, the blessings that come from generous, cheerful giving is not
a direct result of how much you give. Rather, the person who
gives sacrificially and generously is the same kind of person who is
already living a totally surrendered, wholeheartedly committed life to
Christ, and that’s the kind of life God blesses!
Let’s us now demonstrate our self-offering to Christ by bringing
our Faith Pledge Cards forward. Do this as an act of worship and
of total surrender of your whole life to Christ. Let us also take
a minute in silent prayer to invite the Holy Spirit to ignite within us
the fire of total surrender.
Worship Response:
“I Surrender All”
Igniting the Fire of Wholehearted
Obedience
God’s Charge Against
Us: “What harsh things have we said against you?”
Mal 3:13-14
Worshipping, praying, and serving God to the people of Israel had
become passionless, heartless, routine, and driven by duty and
guilt. They read the Old Covenant and misinterpreted it to
declare that simply being God’s people, and fulfilling all the
outward requirements of the Law and of worship should result in getting
God’s approval and blessings. Instead, they were getting
hardship and trial.
So they grumbled in their hearts, “Serving God is futile.
It is a waste of time. Since serving God doesn’t
immediately bring joy and blessing, it is just not worth all the
sacrifice and trouble!”
I don’t know about you, but this kind of thinking to a smaller
degree sometimes slips into my life. I slip into serving God out
of duty, or with some manner of legalism, or driven by guilt.
Sometimes I discover in my heart a stronger desire for God’s
blessing than just for God Himself.
God is not pleased or blessed by our busyness in ministry, or our
prayers or worship, when we do these things only out of duty, or
competition, or envy, or driven by the desire to get something in
return.
What God desires from us is our hearts! What delights the Father
is when we seek to be with Him because we love Him. What pleases
Christ is when we serve and obey Him because we simply do not want to
break His heart, and because we want to demonstrate our love for Him.
Let us take a minute now in silent prayer to ask God’s
forgiveness for any way we serve Him driven by any other motive except
for love. And let us also invite the Holy Spirit to ignite within
us the fire of wholehearted obedience.
Assurance of our
Adoption:
Malachi 3:16-4:3
Worship Response:
“God Will Make
a Way”
“It
is Well With My Soul”