How Have You Loved Us? Malachi 1:2-5

Transcription

1 How Have You Loved Us? Malachi 1:2-5

2 Malachi addresses the attitude that: considers man to be superior to God tries to reduce God to human terms attempts to measure God by human standards

3 Ever since the fall, man has questioned God and attempted to get God to explain Himself. God continually tells us in His Word that we re not in a position to judge Him or His actions. Everything God does is holy, just and loving.

4 Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us that God s thoughts and ways are much higher than our thoughts and ways. Romans 11:33 tells us that His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways are unfathomable.

5 Malachi 1:2-5 2 I have loved you, says the LORD. But you say, How have You loved us? Was not Esau Jacob s brother? declares the LORD. Yet I have loved Jacob; 3 but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.

6 4 Though Edom says, We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins ; thus says the LORD of hosts, They may build, but I will tear down; and men will call them the wicked territory, and the people toward whom the LORD is indignant forever.

7 5 Your eyes will see this and you will say, The LORD be magnified beyond the border of Israel! Before God admonishes His people, and announces their impending judgment, He affirms His love for them.

8 The Israelites had doubts about God s love for them. God s love for Israel began long ago and continued on, in unbroken perfection, until the present time.

9 Romans 8: For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

10 God could never love you any less than He loves you right now, and He could never love you any more than He loves you right now. Malachi 3:6 For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

11 Hebrews 12: It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

12 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.

13 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. God desires to correct His children, not to crush them.

14 Malachi 1:2-3 2 I have loved you, says the LORD. But you say, How have You loved us? Was not Esau Jacob s brother? declares the LORD. Yet I have loved Jacob; 3 but I have hated Esau Jacob and Esau were twins who were born to Isaac and his wife, Rebekah.

15 Proverbs 6: There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: 17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, 18 A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil, 19 A false witness who utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers.

16 Perfect love doesn t completely eliminate hate. Because of our sin nature, we have a tainted view of both love and hate. For God, love and hate coexist in His perfect nature.

17 Malachi 1:2-3 2 Yet I have loved Jacob; 3 but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.

18 God s love for Jacob was manifested by His choice of Jacob to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant. Since God didn t choose Esau, He hated him.

19 Romans 9:6-8 6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; 7 nor are they all children because they are Abraham s descendants, but: THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.

20 8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.

21 Romans 9: And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac;

22 11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,

23 12 it was said to her, THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER. 13 Just as it is written, JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.

24 Romans 9: What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.

25 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

26 Romans 9: You will say to me then, Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will? 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, Why did you make me like this, will it?

27 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? God chose Jacob over Esau because it was His sovereign choice to fulfill His eternal purpose.

28 God s choice proved His love for Israel. Once we begin to follow Christ, we experience God s love in a very special way. And, nothing can ever separate us from His love.