The Evidences of God's Love?

Take one little piece of the book of Malachi. If you'll turn there, Malachi is really easy to find. It is a minor prophet. I know minor prophets are hard to find for most of us, but it's the last book in the Old Testament. The book right before Matthew. If you don't have a Bible, we have a bunch of Bibles in the back table, and we'll be glad to give you one. If you'd like a Bible, raise your hand. There's anybody here who needs a Bible. Okay, there's, all right, good. Thank you. Malachi, chapter one. Listen to these words. Malachi writes, the oracle of the Word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi. I have loved you, says the Lord, but you say, how have you loved us? Was not Esau, this is God's response.

Was not Esau, Jacob's brother declares the Lord? Yet I have loved Jacob. But I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountain a desolation, and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness. Though Edom says, we have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins. That says, the Lord of hosts, they may build, but I will tear down, and then we'll call them the wicked territory and the people toward whom the Lord is indignant forever. Your eyes will see this, and you will say, the Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel. Now, this message, although it might sound a bit cryptic to you, and you first read it, when you put it in a historical context, what a great description and proclamation of the love of God for his people.

When times are hard, we are going through great difficulties. When we face things that seem to be on the verge of overwhelming us, it becomes a little more difficult to believe that God loves us at times. Because all the appearances, as we look at our life, seem to count against such a belief that God truly loves us, and we are the apple of his eye. Yet this is exactly what Malachi is all about. It is a message to the people of God in one of their darkest hours, and God telling them directly of his love for them, and that even though they are going through great difficulty at this time, that his love for them is sure and unchanging and regardless of how they feel or what they go through, God's love is going to find fulfillment in their lives.

If you've ever read the book of First John, which is a little epistle at their very end of the New Testament, and you see this phrase over and over again about the love of God being fulfilled in you. That expression isn't talking about your love for God, but it's talking about God's love for you. God says there are certain marks of his love for us being fulfilled in us. In other words, reaching its goal, its intended purpose. The reason that God loves you and his purposes in loving you, and what he's going to accomplish because he loves you, he says are being fulfilled, and there are certain characteristics that are seen in our lives, that shows that God's love is being fulfilled in us. And that's what Malachi is saying to the nation who is in a very difficult time.

This particular point in history, 433 BC, when this was written, was a time, basically the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. It's really an uneventful time. It's the time when there wasn't a whole lot going on. It was a waiting period. They were waiting for God to fulfill his promises. But it was a time in which it didn't appear as those God's blessings were being poured out upon them. There was a lot of poverty in the land. They'd come back, a small remnant that had come back from Babylonian captivity. They had rebuilt the temple, but it didn't possess the glory that they expected. Ezekiel gives a prophetic word in the midst of his book, in chapter 43 about the glory that was going to characterize the temple in the time of Messiah.

And yet that glory didn't appear. And they wondered about God's commitment to them. Did God really love them? They saw little evidence of it. And so they began to simply go through the motions of their religion. Their heart was not in it. They were, it was heartless, obedience and heartless fulfillment of duty. But they didn't really see the hand of God and they didn't feel his presence. They didn't worship him out of a heart that was full. They worshiped him without enthusiasm. They went through all the motions. They knew when they were supposed to come to the temple and what they were supposed to do during these times of worship, but their heart was not in it. And as a result of that, more and more they drifted towards hedonism and materialism.

They started turning to idols to have their deepest needs met. Like Christians are want to do today when we don't see the evidence of God's love in our lives. When we see difficulties, and it seems as though God is a million miles away, we see no evidence of his act of working in our lives. I love these songs that we sing, especially these Irish Welch songs about the gospel and the spread of his glory around the globe and how God is marching on and he is a victorious God. In Jesus Christ, the spread of his kingdom is taking place around the world. Now it's true that we are not the church triumphant. We aren't the church yet that has come into the glory of Christ when he returns, but we see the gospel spread around this world.

We hear about more and more people, millions of people coming to faith around the globe. And yet at times our own lives and our own circumstances seem so drab. And we really do wonder, does God even take notice of me? Now the complaint of the people is found here in these verses and their complaint is basically this. If God loves this, then why doesn't he show it more? Why doesn't he make it visible to us that he loves us? If he's so good and righteous, why aren't we seeing more evidence of prosperity in the fabulous day of the Messianic era that the prophet spoke of? Where is the glory of the Messiah? The Messianic era, the prophets, the Old Testament prophets said there would be fruitfulness in the land.

In Ezekiel chapter 34, he describes the fruitfulness of the land in such a way that would be overwhelming to them. The great prosperity that would take place. And yet their condition was the land was languishing that was drought year after year. In Isaiah chapter 54 says the Messianic era would be characterized by a swelling population. There would be more and more people, it'd be like California, a growing country. And yet what they saw was just a fraction of their previous population, just a remnant had returned. And they were such a small band. In Jeremiah 23 it says during the Messianic era, there would be a reign of a new David, a son of David, the king. And yet they were the under the thumb of Persia.

They were not reigning themselves at all. They were really, even though they were back in the land that's remnant, they were under the authority and rule of a foreign ruler. In Isaiah 49 it said during the Messianic days, all the nations would come and serve them. Imagine that. And here's this little band of Jews back in the land and they were servants of everyone around them. It didn't seem like God was fulfilling his promises at all, but notice Malachi's response to them. His answer to them is that God still loves you with an unchanging stubborn love. And really the key argument of this book is you read through it's a very small book for chapters. And the message of this book is that God has and continues to love us no matter how much doubting, no matter how much objecting or arguing, it will never remove the fact that we are the object of his love.

Malachi's one plea is return to a personal relationship with a living God who seeks men in order to walk with him. See God doesn't just want to save you so that you won't face judgment in the future. He saved you so that you could walk with him so that we could have a relationship with him as a people. So that we could know him as he really is. And this is what this book is about. It's about what God wants from us. He wants us to see his love fulfilled in us. You look at the book of first John and talks about the fulfillment of God's love for us. The fulfillment of that love is that we have fellowship with him. That we know him intimately and that he had the joy of relationship with Christ becomes the greatest motivator in our lives.

Not the other things in this world. It's good to have all those good things and to enjoy them as from the hand of God. But what God really wants from us is for us to come to see the true value that there is in knowing him and experiencing him in our daily lives. It's a very timely message, I think, because it really strikes at the heart of the nominal, easygoing Christianity that's all around us. That we're Christian in name. And that's what it means to be a nominal Christian. We are Christian in name. If they give us a little form to fill out and says religion, we put Christianity. But do you know Christ? Do you walk with Christ? Do you experience the joy of fellowship with him? So here we have the theme of Malachi.

The theme of Malachi is, I have loved you, says the Lord. The thing that he's going to tell us in this book is that you cannot explain the love of God. You can't explain its causes. Why did God love you? Why did he love Jacob and hate Esau? You can look in vain to try to discover why. If you're honest and you look at Jacob, you will discover he was no more a lovable person than Esau. In fact, in many ways, he was worse than Esau. Esau was a man's man. And yet Jacob was a heal-grabber. He was the kind of guy he would cheat you and if you bought a used car from him. And yet God loved Jacob and hated Esau. And you can't explain the cause of the love of God. Why has he loved you? Why has he chosen you?

Why has he called you to himself and blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heaven, these in Christ Jesus? Don't ask me. Don't ask me, I don't know. I don't know why he chose you, other than his own character. He's also gonna tell us in this book that you cannot test its durability. You will never be able to outlive the durability of the love of God for his people. He has stubborn in his love for you. Isn't it amazing what he has put up with in you? And he continues to love you and manifest his love in such real and concrete ways? Not only that, but he's gonna tell us something really interesting and that is that the foundation of the Lord's complaints against Israel is his love for them.

You know why he complains against them and the way they're living is because of his love for them. Why do you live with such ingratitude and such hypocrisy and light of the fact that I have loved you so much? Think a look at your own life. Does your life measure up to the weight of God's great love for you in Christ Jesus? Did you say there are indications in the way that I live and walk with Christ that would manifest the fact that he has loved me this much? The book of Colossians says that we ought to, our walk, our Christian walk, ought to measure up. It ought to be of equal weight to the grace of God that is found in Christ Jesus. Isn't that an amazing thing? That doesn't ever mean you will deserve the love of God.

It simply means that we can live in such a way that manifest the fact that we really do understand to some degree the greatness and profundity of his love for us in Christ. And that is why what he's trying to get through to them and what he's trying to get the Spirit is trying to get through to us today as we face a new year. In the Bible is always telling us that we need to face life. We need to come to life every day with certain presuppositions, certain assumptions that we embrace and we hold onto and we will not give up on because we know they're true. And that's what he's trying to tell them that you need to come to life with a certain assumption about God's love for you. I want you to notice certain characteristics here about three main characteristics of the love of God for his people.

The first is that God's love is sovereign. God's love is sovereign. As the Lord of all, as the sovereign God of the universe, there is no necessity laid on him. He doesn't love you because there is something about you that he finds absolutely irresistible. He is sovereign in his love. God's love must be defined by who he is. What is it like to be loved by God like this, a God who is sovereign, a God who freely of his own choice because of his own decision set his affection upon you. And then secondly, it is unconditional. It's unconditional. Look with me at the book of Deuteronomy. Look at these words found in Deuteronomy chapter seven. In Deuteronomy chapter seven, verses seven and eight, these are familiar words, but let them sink in a moment.

And think of these in terms of, we are told in 1 Corinthians 10 that everything that God did in the life of the nation of Israel is a type of his love and his relationship to us, the people of God. I don't exactly believe in what's called replacement theology that we are the new Israel. And therefore God has no future for Israel, the national Israel. But I do believe that what the Bible clearly teaches is the way that God dealt with Israel in the Old Testament is to give us a clear picture of his relationship with us. And listen to what he says about his love for Israel, his chosen people in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse seven, the Lord did not set his love on you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples for you with the fewest of the peoples.

Are you great? Is there anyone here who has a great name in this world that if your name was spoken anywhere on this globe, they would say, oh yeah, I know about him. I know about her, I doubt it. Not many high born, not many mighty, not many wise. So I didn't choose you because you were great in the eyes of men. He goes on in verse eight, but because the Lord loves you. Isn't that something? Why did you love me, God? Because I loved you. Because I loved you, because the Lord loved you. And kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers. The Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the land of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. The same could be said of you.

He said his affection on you and he brought you out of slavery. And he gave you life, indeed. The third thing about his love, he's going to reveal to us in the Old Testament and Malachi basis his argument upon it is that his love is intimately personal. It is intimately personal. Sometimes you know, we have this idea. Well, you know, the Bible says, God so loved the world. I'm part of the world. He loves me because he loves the whole world. There's nothing personal about it. He just loves the world of mankind. But the Bible says that it is very intimate. It's very close. Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 14, the whole to the Lord, your God belong. Heaven and earth, the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in them.

Yet on your fathers did the Lord set his affection to love them. And he chose their descendants, their seed after them, even you above all the people. There was, it is a personal relationship. Josea 11, it tells us that God's love for his people is like a father's love for his little boy. You know what that's like? You know what it's like for a father to love his little boy? You ever watched that? I was talking to a brother here this morning about his love for his kids and his he described Christmas and what had happened with his little boy and little girl. It's so obvious he has a love for his children. It's a love for his little boy. That's what Josea says. God's love for you is like a father's love for his little boy.

He loves you. He delights in you. It's very personal. C.S. Lewis in one of his books gives four analogies of God's love for us. These are kind of interesting. He says, first God's love for us is like an artist's love for his creation, something that he's created with his artistic ability. Ephesians, Ephesians chapter two says, we are his, we are his poyema, his poem created in Christ Jesus. He loves us because of like an artist loves his creation. Secondly, he loves, Lewis says like a master loves his pet. And some of you love your pet in a great way. And when I say dogs won't go to heaven, I always get a lot of flak from certain people because they're convinced that this object of their love must spend all eternity with them.

He also said God's love is like a parent's love for his child. But then he, the fourth one, the one he expands upon us, the God's love is like a husband's love for his wife. Think about this for a second. A husband who truly loves his wife, the way Christ loves the church. His love for his wife is characterized by two things. The fact that he forgives the most, and he condones the least. A husband who truly loves his wife forgives the most, but condones the least. He forgives the most. In other words, he looks beyond the offense because he loves the person. He looked, how does that sound go? He looked beyond my sin and so my need. Dottie Rambo wrote that. I can't remember the words to it, but that's what he did.

He looked beyond your sin. He looked beyond all that would cause God to reject you and he loved you. A husband forgives the most from his wife, but he also condones the least. He continues to forgive, but he never ceases to coach, coax and to urge and to wish and to hope. That she would change. We see that in the book of Hosea. Hosea loves his wife because God told him to love her. And no matter how many times she sinned against him, he continued to love her. He didn't condone it, but he continued to love her. You know, in, look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13, it's amazing expression here about this process of love when the object of our love sins against us. 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse seven.

He says, he begins to describe love primarily in negative ways. It's interesting what love does not do, but then he says down in verse seven, love bears all things. Love continues, even though it's offended. Believes all things. See, love believes the best. Why is it hard to convince someone that the person they love has been unfaithful to them? Because a person who truly loves believes the best. But then when they see they're wrong, it says, love hopes, hopes for change. And then he says, love endures all things. Love endures all things. What an amazing commitment. I would say the great majority of marriages, weddings that take place in our culture. The couple has in mind the fact that there is an exit clause in this agreement.

And yet when God created the covenant of marriage, He created it based upon His love for His people. It was to be a picture of Christ's love for the church. And you know what? And you know what? Jesus' love for His people will endure forever. Ephesians chapter two verse seven says that our eternity is going to be filled. As the ages roll in on us, we are going to learn in a deeper and deeper and more profound way about God's love for us in Christ Jesus. We could never test the durability of God's love. We could never bring it to its end. God's love for us is an everlasting love. But notice the uniqueness of God's love. The uniqueness of God's love is this, is that there is a tension. Maybe we can keep this in mind, a tension between forgiving the most and condoning the leaves.

I say this because this is the message of Malachi, but also because it's such a common misunderstanding about the love of God. So many people think the love of God is like a parent who cannot stand to hold their child accountable, an indulgent parent who is blind to the sins of their children. We've all seen that. And maybe we've been that and not known it. God's love is not like that. The writer Hebrew says that God chasens those whom he loves and he scorches every son whom he receives. Wow. You know what scorch means? Scorch means the kind of spanking that we all tell our children we got when we were kids. I used to tell my kids how my dad would, you know, I mean, the kind of spankings I got, nothing compared to this.

And my mother's reminded me that that just wasn't true. Scorching is a hard spanking. Why does he use language like that? Because God's love for us has this pension in it. He forgives the most and yet he condones the least. He deals with sin in our lives. He truly deals with sin in our lives. He's not like the husband who would allow another man to move into his house and sleep with his wife. He's not like that. His love is not like that. His love is a disciplining love. His love is the kind of love that a parent has for a child that parent does not condone rebellion. The parent doesn't condone sin because the parent loves the child. Amen. God deals with us. Concerning our sin because he loves us.

And then notice God's way of loving. God's way of loving is this. He offers pardon and acceptance. Maintains this high and holy standard that is a manifestation of his character. And it's the holiness that he calls us to. He doesn't give up on us or condone our sins or our failures or our failure to meet up to his standard. But he continues to love us. He faithfully continues to love us without making excuses for our failures deciding to lower his standard. It's so obvious when a child is totally out of control and a parent knows they can't bring them under and so they avoid conflict. I remember one time talking to a man in his garage and his old boy was a wild, he was really a wild kid and this guy was just oblivious.

He was totally oblivious to everything this kid was doing. And we're standing there talking and we're in his shop and he's taking a hammer and he's just beating the side of his expensive machinery that he's got. And we're talking. It finally got so loud he came to himself and he turned around and took the hammer away from the boy and laid it up on the top. And we talked a little more and the boy got the hammer off and started banging it again. It's amazing to me. God is not like that. God is very attentive. He's very attentive to our lives. And he forgives the most. But he condones the least. Now Malachi's opening message to them in these first five verses is since God's love has continued unabated.

Since God loves you in this way, then you need to reciprocate in kind. You need to be aware of God's love for you and you need to live in response to that great love. And let's look at the characteristic of God's love. First of all, God says, I chose you. Here's proof of my love. The greatest proof of the love of God, he says, is the fact that God has chosen you. Listen to God's claim here in Malachi, chapter one. In verse two, he says, I have loved you, says the Lord. I have loved you. I have sent my affection upon you. Now, he, the word that he uses here that describes his love for them is in a tense that emphasize the fact that God has set his love upon them and he continues to love them because of that.

Ephesians chapter one says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the Hevelies and Christ Jesus. And then he begins to enumerate his blessings. What's the first blessing that he mentions according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world? He chose us. He said his affection upon us. He chose to love us. God's love is the only cause that is ever stated for God's choosing Israel. And it's the only cause that is ever stated for God choosing you. It is because he decided to love you. And they needed reminding of this because they were beginning to think that God did not love them because of what they were going through.

And so it begins to enumerate them. But notice what their response is in the middle of verse two. The living Bible translates, it's actually a paraphrase of this. It paraphrase it this way. Their response when God says, I have loved you. And their response is really? When was that? When did you love us? See, this really reveals the problems of their heart. They were totally insensitive both to the love of God and to their own wicked departure from God. They ought to have been amazed at the fact that the level of blessing that they were receiving was so great in light of their sin. And God answers them in the last part of verse two and the first part of verse three. And his answer is, notice the best illustration of my love for you is my election love for Jacob over Esau.

That's interesting to me that God chooses things like this to describe His love for us that is so offensive to people. For you read the this passage and you read it's being quoted in Romans chapter nine and people get so offended by it. When it says that God loved Jacob but he hated Esau. And yet God says here, this is one of the greatest illustrations of the fact of my love for you. Now let me deal with something here. And that is, it does this imply that the Lord is hateful. It's God hateful. Does it bother us that it says that God hated Esau? John Reasonger had a woman talk to ask him about this. Oh no, actually it was John Reasonger. He was actually quoting Spurgeon. A woman asked Spurgeon, she read this passage to him, says, I do not understand this.

And she of course was speaking about the fact that it said God hated Esau. And Spurgeon said, I don't either. But he said the thing that puzzles me is not the fact that God hated Esau. I can understand that. What I don't understand is how could he love Jacob? And how could he love me? Well what is he saying here? Well first of all notice that there are things that merit and receive God's hatred. There are things that God should hate because of His very nature because of who He is. First thing is that we are told in Scripture that God hates hypocritical worship. God hates hypocritical worship. I say it's after when he begins the book of Isaiah by telling the people of God that he hates it when we come together to worship the living God and our hearts are not engaged.

A few months ago I had a wonderful experience. I had a young person, a teenager, a 16-year-old who came to me and said, I'm bothered by something that you said and you've said it more than once in your sermons. What's that? You said if you're really a Christian, that when you worship it would affect your heart. And I want to tell you it doesn't affect my heart. When I worship there's nothing emotional about it. My emotions aren't touched. Does that mean I'm not a Christian? It means you're not living like He wants you to. It means you're not worshipping the way He wants you to because God hates worship that does not flow from the heart. Do you ever stop and think about the words that you utter with your mouth when you sing these songs?

About God's righteousness and His mercy kissing the earth. In the Lord Jesus Christ, do you think about, does it ever move your heart? As you sing these words about the massive love of God for us in Christ Jesus. And He sent Jesus into the world. He poured out His mercy that there are rivers of mercy that have flowed out of the heart of Jesus Christ for us. Does that touch your heart? God says, I hate worship that is formed with no heart engagement. Now that should scare us. That should cause us to fear the living God. That I could have been the living God by sitting amongst the people of God when we are at worship, when we are singing these incredible words about His goodness and greatness and grace in Christ Jesus.

And it not flow from my heart but simply from my mouth. Now all of us are guilty of this. I am. And you are too. There are times when we do not have our hearts engaged. And the Bible says God rightfully hates hypocritical worship. There's another thing the Bible says that God hates. There are many things, but one of them is found one set of them rather is found in Proverbs chapter 6, verses 16 through 19, the seven evils that are mentioned there. And He mentions these, you don't have to turn there. He mentions pride. God hates pride. Whoa, I've got a little that. God hates lying. You lied any this past year? And any occasions where before your own benefit you lied? God hates lying. God hates murder.

God hates an evil imagination. When I use my imagination that those things that rise up in my heart against God in independence of Him and idolatry, it says He hates an evil imagination. He hates evil doing. He hates false witness. Engage in the gossip this past year that you discovered you were telling a lie about the person you were talking about. You've done any slandering this past year. God hates it. And then the last thing He says is God hates dissension among the brethren. God hates it when we promote dissension among the brethren. God actually wants us to love each other. There are things that God hates. And He rightfully hates them because they are in direct opposition to who He is. Now there's, but there's another thing and that is, and I think you can understand this.

If you love your spouse, if you love your children, if you have a deep and true love for someone in this life, then you know and you can understand that it's possible to hate with a burning anger, anything that would destroy that object of your love. You hate to sin that could destroy them. You hate the relationships that could destroy them. You hate the influences that could destroy them and you rightfully hate them. That's what we ought to do because they are an object of our love. And God hates those things that will destroy His people. He rightfully hates them. But then there is a specialized use of the love, hate relationship in Scripture. And we ought to be aware of this because it really shed some light on this.

We see it manifested in several ways. One way is in, one way is found in the relationship between Rachel and Leah. Jacob's love, remember Jacob who worked for seven years for Rachel, who'd be loved. Jacob loved Rachel. His heart was set upon her. And he was willing to work for seven long years to obtain her as his wife. And yet he worked those seven years and instead of Rachel, he got Leah. Now Leah was not loved by Jacob. She wasn't the apple of his eye. Rachel was. And when it speaks about Jacob's relationship with Rachel and Leah, God uses that as an illustration. It actually says in Genesis 29 that Leah was hated by Jacob. And did he have some kind of a psychological hatred for her? Did he despise her?

No, not at all. In fact, he treated her with great care. But the language is used as a way of contrasting the difference between his great love for Rachel and his lack of that kind of love for Leah. And that is used of God's love for us. We see this also in the New Testament in Matthew 6, in Matthew 10, and Luke 14, where it says, where Jesus said, if you do not hate your mother and father and brother and sister and your own life and come and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. Does Christ want you to hate your parents? No. But the language he is using is powerful language to describe the kind of love and commitment that we must have for Jesus Christ. We must be so committed to him that if we have to turn against the advice of everyone in the face of the globe in order to follow him, we would do it.

And so this language is used over and over again. And this kind of hatred is not an absolute psychological kind of hatred, but it is a kind of hatred and love that is describing the ranking and preference of setting up priorities that God has for his people. God's love for his people is so massive. Love for the descendants of Jacob, not just the physical, but the spiritual descendants, or the spiritual descendants of Abraham is so great that his relationship to those outside of that circle is like hatred. It will spend an eternity by their own choice and by the choice of God as a result, away from the presence of God. Jacob was loved, God's love signals his election and his call of this man to himself, a blessing to all the nations.

That's what he's chosen to be. And God's hatred for Esau was simply a description of the fact that he was not the object of God's disdain, his disgust, and his unchecked design of revenge, but rather the fact he was not an object of his love, elective love. I love all of the women in this church, but not the way I love my wife, of almost 40 long years. Actually, very short. But I don't love anybody like her on this earth. God loves the world. John 3.16 says, for God's will love the world. That is this world arrayed against God that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. But he loves his people in a unique way, like a husband loves his wife, above all others, forsaking all others.

God is willing to forsake those who rebel and will not believe and will not turn to his son in order to love and bless his own. So God is saying, when did I love you? When is your last? When did you love us? Look at our situation. Look at our circumstances. When did you love us? What did you do for me lately? God says, when did I love you? I loved you before time. And I began to sovereignly set my affection on you and choose you for a special task to accomplish something that was going to result in the blessing of all the nations of this world. And that love, that elective love for you, the effects of that continue on and on throughout eternity. What would God say to you? If you were to say to God, well, when did you love me?

What would he say to you, believer? He would say exactly what Paul says in Ephesians 1. I chose you before the foundation of the world to become holy and blameless before me, in love predestinating you unto adoption as sons. God's love for you is so massive and so great, it is so easy to take it lightly. But as you enter into the 2003, the one assumption of life that you must carry with you, the basic framework of the way you look at the world is, you are an object of the love of God in Christ Jesus. The second thing he says to them, that proves his love for them, is that not only did I choose you, but I stir you to repentance. I'll get this. The proof of God's love for his people is that he stirs us to repentance.

He stirs us to repentance. Well, the greatest evidence is that a person truly knows Jesus Christ is they repent. Not once. John Calvin said, the characteristic of a believer is that he is in continual repentance. We repent all the time. Why do we do that? Simply because we sin all the time, right? I mean, if you don't know that, then you don't understand the righteousness and holiness and perfection of God. Yes, we sin all the time. It's not like I've got a sin today to meet my quota. It is the fact that we are still painted and affected by our sin and our hearts are still clinging. Still has sin clinging to it. And so one of the effects, one of the marks of God's love for us, is that he stirs us to repentance.

He doesn't leave us in our sin. Here we have a picture of a nation who got what they deserved. In verse three, the last part of verse three and verse four, that is the nation of Adam, the descendants of Issa. They got what they deserved. It is the witness of the Old Testament, it's the witness of the New Testament, it's a witness of ancient history, that these people, the way they lived out their lives and their immorality and their godlessness, desiring to destroy everything around them, they were destroyed. Now here's the point that Malachi is making. God allowed them to continue in their sin. God allowed them to continue in their sin to the point that they were destroyed. In 400 BC, the Arabs ransacked Adam and destroyed them as a nation, and they no longer exist.

Now think about this. He is comparing God's hatred for Issa and his love for Jacob, because he brought them, he brought the descendants of Jacob to repentance. The fact that they repented over their sin was evidence that they truly had life. Well, the greatest evidence is that you are a believer, that you are truly born again, is that you grieve over your sin. That God leads you to repentance. The goodness of God leads us to repentance. Why was Adam devastated because they failed to walk in obedience to Jehovah and they refused to repent? The proof of God's love on Israel, upon Jacob and his descendants, was that he stirred them to repentance at this point in history. What's the proof that God loves you, not only that he chose you before time, but that he stirs you to repentance today?

Isn't it amazing that he doesn't let you wallow in your sin? He won't let you stay in it. He won't let you live out your life in sin, John chapter 3 verse 9 says, he that has been born of God cannot. He is not able to live a life of sin, because God's seed remains in him and he cannot sin. That verse saying you can't sin? Well, obviously not. You can sin and you've proved it this week, haven't you? What that verse is saying is you cannot plan and carry out a life of sin, because you're God's child. You cannot live in rebellion against your father. You cannot live your life out in rebellion against your father, because his seed remains in him and he cannot sin. This is the proof of God's love, that he turns you in repentance.

And then finally, the last thing, as he says, the third manifestation of his love is, I will open your eyes. Notice what he says in verse 5, your eyes will see this and you will say, the Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel. They're going to see it. They're going to see it. Israel was totally insensitive to the love of God and the favor of God towards them, but he says, the time is coming when you will be forced to acknowledge is a merit of love and favor towards you. You will see it. Your eyes will be opened and you will be an awe of God's grace towards you. If they just looked, if they would just look around them and if they would have really weighed things out, they would have seen that even though they were sitting in a miserable situation, the hand of God was upon them as he was on no other nation.

You know, on your worst day, on your worst day, when you're laying in a hospital like Mike was this past week with an ivy in you and having not telling what's going to happen, whether you had a liver die, on your worst day, your life is marked by the abundance of grace. Isn't that right? The abundance of grace. God has blessed you so richly. That kid right in this skateboard right there making all this noise has no clue that what we're talking about is the most important thing in the world. The God has blessed you so richly. On your worst day, you are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. God's promise to Abraham was, in your seed, all the nations of the year shall be blessed.

We're told in Galatians, that's the good news, that's the gospel. That's through the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ himself, that all the nations are going to be blessed through the proclamation of the gospel. And they come to know this truth. One of the things, the God's promise to you is, and you know, all God wants them to do in this book, is for them to begin to look beyond their own borders, to look at the rest of the world, and look at what's happening, and to see the hand of his blessing in their lives, even though they're living in humble circumstances. The seed God's rich blessing. Yeah, you've got problems. Yeah, you've faced some difficulties. Yes, you've faced some that seem insurmountable.

And you know what? Somebody may die this year in this congregation. Don't have anybody in mind. But somebody may die. But when does that mean? It means that you enter into the presence of his glory. The abundance of grace. When you see it with unveiled eyes. When you see as you want to see now. God's blessed you so richly. And all he wants us to do is he wants us to see it as a mark of his great love for us. You know, there's a lot of evidence for the love of God. Before time he chose you. He selected you to deliver you. To be an object of his grace and his love, and an instrument of his blessing to this world. Think of it. God's chosen you to be an instrument of blessing to this world. Wherever you're at.

Whether it's here or he takes you somewhere else in the world. He has chosen you to be an instrument of his blessing. And in time he has treated you with mercy. Hasn't he been merciful to you this past year? Wasn't he full of mercy in 2002? Isn't it amazing you're still alive? You're living. You're breathing. You're here. God didn't snuff you out. He's blessed you. And then throughout your life he continues to work on your behalf. Even when you're forgetful. Even when you totally forget how much he loves you. And how he's demonstrated this in Christ Jesus. Well, how does God want you to respond to this? Look at this. Look with me at chapter three for sixteen. Here's one of my favorite passages in all Bible.

Malachi three sixteen. One more time. Malachi three sixteen. Stas. Then those who feared the Lord. Those who actually got it. Those who actually had their eyes opened to the great love of God in the midst of their horrible circumstances. Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. And the Lord gave attention and heard it. What do you think they were talking about? You know my shivvy, the transmission slipping. You know a good place where I could take it? You know, we think about selling our house. It seems like the market's really up. What do you think you could get for that? You know, I don't know what to do about my Ira. What do you think they were talking about? They were talking about the love of God.

And the blessing of God. The commitment of God. The choice of God. And God the Lord gave attention and heard it. Isn't this something that you can have a conversation today when the service is over with a fellow believer and listen to it and hear it and pay attention to it? He will actually pay attention to it. Now he doesn't need his shivvy fixed. He doesn't need to know where to invest his money. So those conversations aren't all that interesting to him. But when you talk about his son and about the greatness of his son and his blessings of grace through Christ Jesus, count on it. God is listening. And he is attentive and a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem his name.

Wow. You know what? It says to me this passage. It says that on that great day when we stand before Christ, we are going to be made aware of the fact that God was attentive to the least details of our life, those conversations that we had that we thought nothing about. We simply spoke a word of exhortation, encouragement, teaching, admonition in the name of Jesus Christ. And then every man's praise will come from God. What an amazing thing. That what we do today, on this day that seems so uneventful, we have been so filled up with so many things this past week and we come today and all we want to do is relax and think about it. Your conversations today, today, as you speak to one another about Jesus Christ and about God's great blessings in him, are going to last for eternity.

They are going to come up at the great judgment of Christ. Isn't that something? Choose your words well. Speak from a heart that is full of acknowledgement of the love of Christ. Face this new year, face this new day that you have with this basic assumption of life that I am so richly blessed, I am so abundantly blessed. The blessings are so full and so overwhelming that I can't stop talking about it. He's blessed me so reasonably. Would you stand with me with a close in prayer and then we can take time to speak to one another? Let's pray. Our Father, how grateful we are for this year that you have blessed us so richly, you have literally overwhelmed us with the greatness, the pervasiveness, the variety of your blessings.

Some of them have come through trials. Some of your blessings have come through great disappointments. Some of your blessings have come wrapped up in such unique packages that we could never think that we could call them blessings and yet as we look back on them, we see your mighty hand. And your abundant blessing, even in our difficulties. So we pray, oh God, as we face this new year, another year, another 365 days when you can pour out your blessings in our lives and through us, your blessing into the lives of others. We pray that we would face it with this clear acknowledgement that you have chosen us, that you have been faithful to us, that you have been faithful to call us to repentance this past year.

That our relationship with you continues and it flourishes because of you and not because of us. We are so blessed and we thank you for it. And we pray that you would fill our conversations with words of blessing, with words of adoration and praise to the living God we pray. In Jesus' name and for his glory. Amen. Amen.