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It’s now September and for most of us our summer holidays are over. This week many of our church groups, particularly for children and young people will be starting again. Of course, as we have been thinking about earlier in the service, schools will be going back for the beginning of a new academic year.

I wonder if you can cast your minds back to your own schooldays to the first day of the school year when often there was that special beginning of year assembly, when everyone in the hall was smartly dressed wondering what the coming year would have in store. As a headteacher I had the privilege of leading these beginning of year assemblies for 21 years. I would always start off in the same way. (It was a bit boring, actually). I would say, “Put up your hand if you are really pleased to be back at school.” Only one or two hands timidly went up. “All right, put your hand up if you are quite pleased to be back at school.” A few more hands went up. “All right, put your hand up if you are okay about coming back to school.” A lot more hands went up. It was quite interesting actually to see when the staff put their hands up.

I would then talk about all that was achieved in the past year – the good things and the not so good things where perhaps students hadn’t quite worked hard enough or had too many detentions. We would then look at where we were now, for example with the exam results that had just come out, and then we would look forward to what would be happening in the coming year, and ask God to be with us in all that lay ahead. Now, I am not saying that Malachi’s prophecy to the people of God is a glorified school assembly – but there are some similarities. But what Malachi does show us is God’s Big Picture, just like what Andy and Yanjun were talking about - do sign up! So, what we shall do is, like in that school assembly, look back, consider the present state of the people and then look forward to the future.

1. Looking Back

In our first session in Malachi that David preached on, we saw these amazing words (Malachi 1.2):

“I have loved you,” says the Lord.

This is God speaking to the people of Israel saying they were his special people, and that he loved them with a unique awesome love. Not because they were a perfect people – as a people they kept turning away from God and his standards. Jacob, later called Israel, the founder of that nation, is mentioned in the first section of the book. He was himself deceitful and manipulative. Yet despite all that, the Lord said that I have loved you. It was all by grace – nothing that Jacob nor his descendants deserved. The Lord wanted them to hold on to his love throughout all the difficult things that were going to happen to them. And the Lord wants us to hold on to his love through all the difficult things that we may face. “I have loved you,” says the Lord.

2. The present sinfulness of the people

Matt took us through a long passage in Malachi 1-2 where Malachi told the people that God was angry with them over their offerings (the quality of their offerings). He called them polluted offerings, sacrifices that were lame or sick, and he called the givers of these sacrifices evil cheats. God saw how much the people disregarded his love and authority. Worst of all were the priests who allowed these offerings to take place. These priests were meant to lead their people in their worship of God, but instead they led the people astray. This is what he says to them (Malachi 2.9):

“But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says the Lord of hosts.

Jonathan showed us two weeks ago that the people were absolutely faithless. They were faithless to each other, for example, by not taking their marriage vows seriously, and so were faithless to God. And so we come to this week’s passage, where we see the sinfulness of the people in Malachi 2.17:

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

Does this mean that the Lord does not want to hear our words? Does it mean that we weary him when we come to him in prayer? Certainly not. He wants us to come in prayer to him. He wants us to have a relationship with him where we pour out our hearts to him – even to complain to him. Jonathan in a recent evening service led us through Psalm 64, which begins:

Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint.

David was complaining to God in that psalm and God listened – God was not weary. But in this verse in Malachi, the people wearied God with their words because they were complaining against him. Note the difference between complaining against and complaining to. It was as if the people that Malachi was addressing were speaking about God behind his back (they were saying that God delights in evil) and yet nothing could be further from the truth! God’s character means that he hates evil. Malachi 2.17:

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

Well, the God of justice was going to give his answer.

3. The Future

The beginning of chapter 3 gives God’s answer (Malachi 3.1):

Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

This is the beginning of God’s answer. God was going to send a messenger – in fact, two messengers. The first messenger is the one who will prepare the way. In Malachi 4, Malachi considers Elijah to be the messenger. Jesus actually used this verse from Malachi to describe John the Baptist who would prepare the way for him. John the Baptist is often considered to be an Elijah type figure who prepared the way for the Lord. So, that’s the first messenger. Then the Lord himself is the second messenger – he will suddenly come to his temple with a new covenant. In other words, Jesus is coming with a new agreement between God and his people that we know from the New Testament is based on his blood shed for us on the cross. Jesus is the Lord that the people were seeking. But were the people really ready for the coming of the Lord? (Malachi 3.2a):

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

Perhaps they were hoping that this messenger was going to turn a blind eye to all the sin that they were committing, but that was certainly not going to be the case. Malachi goes on to say (Malachi 3.2b):

For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.

The refiner’s fire burns away impurities to leave pure gold or silver. The fuller’s soap is used to clean cloth by pounding it. In the action of the coming Lord, he is like a refiner’s fire taking out our impurities and like fullers’ soap cleansing us.He will start with the corrupt, wayward priests (Malachi 3.3-4):

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

The sons of Levi, in other words the priests, will be refined like gold and silver, shining, glowing and precious. Whereas the offerings they used to present were polluted, lame and sick, now they will be perfect, offered in righteousness as they should be. These offerings will be pleasing to the Lord, as they were in the days of old and in former years - at the time of Moses and the time of David. Then the Lord will come to judge others – those that one writer, R.T. Kendall, has called those who commit Satanic, sexual and social sins. Malachi 3.5:

Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

Looking out into society, we can all see the awful things that happen there – those who are practising black magic, those who oppress the poor and powerless, those who destroy marriages, those who destroy lives. Judgement should come to them. But if we are saying that, we are missing the point. God is speaking through Malachi not to the world, but to the people of Israel – in our case, the church. The Apostle Peter says this (1 Peter 4.17):

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God…

Judgement is being described in Malachi 3.5 for Christians, the household of God. But you might say that these are not the things I do. There was, however, a church rebuked by the risen Lord Jesus, the church in Laodicea, which we heard about in our second reading. This is what Jesus says to them (Revelation 3.15-16):

I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

These are strong words from Jesus, but perhaps that’s us, perhaps that’s you and me – we are lukewarm, and Jesus says that he will spit us out of his mouth. So what does being lukewarm mean? It could be that we claim to be Christians and come to church regularly, but in our day-to-day lives we leave Jesus out. We tend to do things on our own strength, using our own abilities rather than letting Jesus live through us. As a head, I used to think that when things were going well, this is pretty good and take the credit for it, rather than giving the glory to God – then something would come along and give me a clunk, and God would give me a shake. I came to know God’s refining judgement – God’s refining love - that Malachi described. And he had to do that a number of times.

When we suffer hardships and difficulties in our lives, whether it be to do with our families, our health, our employment, our finances, that is perhaps God working through the process of refining us, so that we become more like Jesus and rely on his power in our lives. Jesus goes on to say to the church in Laodicea (Revelation 3.19):

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

That’s a command to us, whom he loves – he wants to refine us and so be zealous and repent. And we know that he loves us because he is waiting for us (Revelation 3.20):

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

If you are not a Christian this morning, if you have never invited Jesus to come into your life, that verse is for you. He is waiting for you to open the door of your life to ask him to come in, to take away your sin and to bring you new life. You need to take that loving invitation seriously. This verse is also for us who are Christians – after all, Jesus spoke these words to a church. We need to come to him and open that door in repentance for our sin - including the sin of being lukewarm, of not allowing Jesus to live through us - he will come in and give us that fresh start. We also need to take that loving invitation seriously. It may be that God has been speaking to you directly this morning from these words from Malachi or from Jesus’ words in Revelation – perhaps it is because you are not a Christian and you need to become a Christian, or because of particular sin, or because of being lukewarm – we are shortly going to have our prayer of confession, where we can take our sin to him. Before we say that prayer, we shall have a minute or so of silence, where we can bring to God what he has placed on our individual hearts. Let’s pray together:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against you and against our fellow men, in thought and word and deed, in the evil we have done and in the good we have not done, through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, who died for us, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may serve you in newness of life; to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Two or three verses further on in Malachi (Malachi 3.7), the Lord says, Return to me, and I will return to you. We know that if we come to him and open the door to him in repentance and faith, he will come into our lives and make us new. Let us now sing our final hymn, that great Wesleyan hymn which talks about God’s love working within us:

Love divine, all loves excelling,Joy of heaven, to earth come down;Fix in us thy humble dwelling,All thy faithful mercies crown.