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This morning is the fourth and final message in our series, “God’s Message Through Malachi.”
In the first message of the series, we saw how Malachi preached a message of pure obedience to God.
You may remember how the people were bringing poor sacrifices to God, and how God responded that He would not accept these sacrifices, because He deserves the very best that we have to give.
Then Malachi turned his attention to our marriages, and told us that if we truly love God, then we will place an extremely high priority on our marriages.
We looked at seven key principles that every marriage needs to know to succeed.
Then Malachi stepped on our toes a bit and told us that part of being obedient to God was giving back part of our resources to Him.
Malachi gave us five key principles on why we should give back to God.
All three of these lessons revolve around the notion that as believers, we must serve God with all of our hearts, even though serving God is sometimes inconvenient.
But what about the times when serving God has seemingly no effect?
What about when you give God your very best, but you still feel like nothing is going your way?
What about when you honor God by developing healthy marriages, but your kids still rebel against you?
What about when you make the commitment to tithe, but the very next day, your car breaks down and your washing machine bites the dust?
Sometimes it just seems like the good guys never win.
It seems like the people who ignore the message of the Bible always end up with the nice houses and the perfect jobs.
In the conclusion of the book of Malachi, Malachi addresses a group of people who are asking those same types of questions.
Malachi now turns his attention to the people who are struggling to follow God’s commands, in the midst of a country of people who have simply stopped caring.
Do you think we can relate to that here this morning?
Please turn in your Bibles to Malachi 3:13, and we’ll be reading until the end of the chapter.
Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD.
Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?
Ye have said, ‘It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?
And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.’
Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon His name.
And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”
Let’s pray.
The title of my sermon this morning is, “Is There Any Point in Serving God?”
In a little bit we are going to look at Malachi chapter four, but for right now I just wanted to read the last portion of chapter three.
Let’s read verse thirteen one more time.
“Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD.
Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?”
God here is charging the children of Israel with speaking harshly to Him.
If you’re reading from the King James Version, then your Bibles have the word “stout” here in verse thirteen.
This word basically means “hard” or “harsh.”
So essentially, God is saying that the children of Israel have been too hard on Him in their accusations.
To this, the children of Israel reply that they have no idea what accusations they have made against God.
In the next couple of verses, God proceeds to explain exactly what the children of Israel have been saying about Him.
Let’s read verse fourteen again.
“Ye have said, ‘It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?”
In this verse, God is reciting some of the objections the children of Israel have had.
They have been saying that it is vain to serve God.
The word “vain” here references a Hebrew word that means “emptiness,” or “nothingness.”
Another word for “vain” is “vapor.”
The closest illustration I can come up with is going outside when it is really foggy, and trying to grab the fog right out of the air.
I mean, you can see the fog really well, but you just can’t seem to grab it.
The children of Israel are saying that the reward for serving God is the same as the reward for swiping your hand through the foggy air.
Nothing.
Your hands are empty, and you have gained absolutely nothing for your time and energy.
The children of Israel are saying that that is what it is like serving God.
They continue the verse by asking what is the profit of keeping God’s laws?
They attempt to keep all of these laws that the neighboring kingdoms think are crazy, and now the children of Israel are starting to ask “why”?
What is the point of circumcising our baby boys, and what is the point of giving God our lambs and our cattle?
I think if we are honest with ourselves, we can admit that very often, we ask the exact same types of questions in our lives.
Why do we do things as Christians that we know are going to be mocked by non-Christians?
Why do we bow our heads and pray before our meals, even if we are in a public place?
Why do we subject ourselves to potential humiliation when we ask our relative if they know Jesus Christ as their Savior?
Why do we preach that sex outside of marriage is wrong, and that getting drunk is a sin?
These are the kinds of things that the majority of people outside these four walls simply do not understand about us Christians.
So church, I ask you today, “Is there any point to serving God?” Let’s see what Malachi says.
Verse fifteen of our text reads, “And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.”
In verse fourteen the people are complaining that they are not blessed for serving God, and now in verse fifteen, they claim that the people who ignore God are better off than they are.
And to be honest, their claims here in this verse do have a ring of truth to them.
Why are the people that are too proud to accept God’s help seemingly doing okay in this life?
Why do the wicked prosper?
This verse paints a picture of people who are deliberately defying the will of God.
They are happily sinning in every way that they know how, and they have more money and more stuff than we do.
Why do the wicked prosper?
This is a theme that runs throughout several of the Psalms.
These Psalms are called imprecatory Psalms, and they focus on challenging God on why bad things happen to good people, and why good things happen to bad people.
And at this point, I feel like I need to make a disclaimer.
So many times even we in the Church complain that we are not getting the things that we deserve.
But you know what, we should praise God that we are not getting the things we deserve!
Because the book of Romans says that there is none righteous, no not one.
So far, I’ve been talking about how we often don’t get what we deserve.
But what is it that we deserve, according to the Bible?
We deserve death in hell, because we have rebelled against God, and we have all sinned against His holy standards.
That’s what we deserve.
So we should be extremely thankful that we are not getting what we deserve.
But the point remains that the people who are flying in the face of God so often seem to be better off than we are.
So now that the children of Israel have brought their complaints to God, God answers them in verses sixteen through eighteen.
Let’s read those verses again.
“Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon His name.
And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”
So the question posed this morning is “Is there any point in serving God?”
The first half of the answer is found right here in these verses.
What does the Bible say in verse sixteen?
“Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon His name.”
In this verse, Malachi says that God has heard the cries of the people for justice.
God has heard the cries of His followers who are beginning to wonder why the wicked are better off than they are.
This is the same type of plea that the Israelites cried out when they were enslaved in Egypt for more than 400 years.
They constantly were begging God to free them from their oppressors, and to bring justice upon the Egyptians.
David made a similar cry when he asked God why it was that Saul was the king, and why God was allowing Saul to pursue him across the country.
It is the same cry that Hannah brought before the LORD when she was unable to have a child, and all she wanted was to have a baby.
And the key in all of these Old Testament stories is that God heard their cries.
God heard the cries of the enslaved Israelites, and He brought them out of slavery and into the Promised Land.
God heard David’s cry, and eventually, He made David king.
God heard Hannah’s cry, and a short time later, she had a baby boy named Samuel, who grew up to be one of the greatest prophets in Israel’s history.
And Malachi is telling us in verse sixteen that God has heard the cries of His people.
The Bible says that God has made a Book of Remembrance.
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