Valley View Chapel June 9, 2013 Back to the Future, Part 4 Through the Fire Malachi 2:17-3:5. Introduction

Transcription

1 1 Valley View Chapel June 9, 2013 Back to the Future, Part 4 Through the Fire Malachi 2:17-3:5 Introduction Have you ever thought deeply about the power of words? How just a couple of words can change our lives? The surgeon comes out of the operating room with a grim face and says: I m sorry. A letter from a college begins with the words: We are pleased to inform you. A young man asks the love of his life to marry him. Just one word Yes or No will change the course of his life. Four words I want a divorce can cause untold heartache. But three other words Let s try again can restore hope. The prophet Malachi told the Jews of the fifth century B.C., You have wearied the LORD with your words. What kind of words weary you? My guess is that they are angry, critical, complaining, whining, discouraging words. What kind of words encourage you? My guess is that they are positive, hopeful, affirming, comforting, edifying words. I read an article awhile ago by Gretchen Rubin entitled: Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore? Here are some Eeyore quotes. "Good morning, Pooh Bear, if it is a good morning, which I doubt." When stuck in the river, it is best to dive and swim to the bank yourself before someone drops a large stone on your chest. Eeyore is known for being pessimistic, gloomy and depressed. He lives in the southeast corner of the Hundred Acre Wood, in an area labeled "Eeyore's Gloomy Place: Rather Boggy and Sad." Tigger, on the other hand, is cheerful, outgoing, and competitive but in a friendly way. He always seems to be filled with great energy and optimism. Tigger has a particular fondness for bouncing. As he says about himself, "Bouncing is what Tiggers do best." Would you rather be around a Tigger or an Eeyore? In his book Restoring Your Spiritual Passion, Gordon MacDonald wrote about VDPs and VIPs. VDPs are Very Draining People. VDPs are the Eeyores of life. VIPs are Very Inspiring People. VIPs are the Tiggers of life. The Jews of Malachi s day were afflicted with an Eeyore complex. They were always in a negative, complaining, gloomy state of mind.

2 2 Wearisome Words The people were saying untrue things about God: Everyone who does what is evil is good in the LORD s sight, and he is pleased with them. And the people asked an insulting question about God: Where is the God of justice? In the first instance they called into question God s holiness and in the second, his justice. If you were here several weeks ago you heard me spell out the difference between criticism and contempt. Criticism is a valid form of communication if it is done in the right spirit. Criticism calls into question someone s actions. Contempt is always out of bounds because it calls into question a person s character. Everyone who does what is evil is good in the LORD s sight, and he is pleased with them and Where is the God of justice? In essence, the people were charging God with contemptible character. Contemptible words that attack our character are always wearisome. We don t want to hear them. We want the person to stop talking and go away. Everyone who does what is evil is good in the LORD s sight, and he is pleased with them reveals a serious flaw in judgment. It rests on a faulty pre-supposition in that it identifies material prosperity and worldly success with God s blessing. There are even those in the church today who promote this sort of misguided thinking. If you re going to equate God s favor with material prosperity then Jesus wasn t highly favored because he lived his entire life as a poor man. Where is the God of justice? Did these people have any idea what they were talking about? As they cried out for God s justice, they were giving second-rate offerings to God. They were going through the motions of religion with neither sincerity nor enthusiasm. They were getting divorced left and right on frivolous grounds. And they were marrying pagans. Yet they asked: Where is the God of justice? I would be very cautious if I were you to ever ask for God s justice. Believe me, none of us should want his justice. Jesus received the full weight of divine justice for six hours one Friday and from all accounts it wasn t a pretty sight. I read recently about a man named Donald Drusky of McKeesport, PA who took God to court. The one-time employee of USX Corporation blamed God for failing to rectify the wrong done to him when he was fired in Drusky waged a 30-year battle with the steelmaker, before deciding to take legal action against God. The suit reads: The defendant, God, is the sovereign ruler of the universe and took no corrective action against the leaders of his church and his nation for their extremely serious wrongs, which ruined the life of Donald S. Drusky. For damages, Drusky asked for the return of his youth, the skill of a great guitarist, and the resurrections of his mother and pet pigeon. Drusky hoped that God would fail to appear in court, allowing him to win the case by default. The case was declared frivolous and thrown out by a Syracuse court.

3 3 Donald Drusky ought to get down on his knees and thank God that justice was denied him! Life isn t fair to our flawed and finite minds. Kids get snow days. I don t. Kids get two-hour delays. I don t. Kids get to go to the mall, the movies or a sledding hill on a snow day. I don t. I ve got to find a way to get over Schooley s Mountain and be in my office whether there s a two-hour delay or not. Johnny Carson once said: If life was fair, Elvis would still be alive and all his impersonators would be dead! Let s never blaspheme God by playing the health and wealth card. Mother Theresa was never wealthy. Donald Trump is. What does that prove? Jim Elliott was martyred on the banks of the Curaray River in Ecuador at the age of 29 while Zsa Zsa Gabor who s currently married to her ninth husband is still alive at 96. What does that prove? Let s not weary the Lord with our complaints about justice, fairness and the raw deal that we have supposedly gotten at his hands. If anybody got a raw deal, it was the Lord Jesus Christ two-thousand years ago! Refining Fire The people wanted justice but thankfully for them God didn t give them justice. He gave them mercy although it was a severe mercy. Severe mercy is when God withholds us from us what we really deserve (which is justice) but allows a painful experience into our lives in order to make us what we ought to be. Think of severe mercy like you think of surgery. Surgery isn t fun. It hurts. It costs us something. It inconveniences us. But hopefully something good comes from it! God loves us too much to leave us the way we are bitter, angry, unthankful, complaining people. Look with me at Malachi 3:2, But who can endure the day of His coming? And who will be able to stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner s fire.he will be like a refiner and purifier of silver. (HCSB) The image is that of a metal smith standing over his pot of molten metal. As he stirs it, the dross or the impurities come to the top. He skims off the dross and keep stirring the pot. As dross keeps rising to the surface, he skims it off. Why does he get rid of the dross? Because it weakens the metal. Whatever he s making out of silver won t hold up if there are impurities in it. Alan Robinson in an article God, the Refiner of Silver, r: There is a dramatic moment when [the refiner] knows that all the dross has gone from the [silver]. Peering over it, the silver suddenly becomes a liquid mirror in which the image of the refiner is reflected. Then he knows that his task is done. That s God s severe mercy. He stands over his people and allows the fire of trials and difficulties to burn off our impurities so that we will be fit and useful for his service; so that we can do what we were meant to do without cracking or breaking. It s a long, difficult and painful process but it s worth the time and the trouble in the end.

4 4 Why does the smith go to such trouble to purify the silver? Because it is worth a great deal. And we who have been made in God s image and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ are worth a great deal to God. That s why he is so careful about purifying us. Our value to him is infinite! We must read Malachi 3:2-3 in connection with Hebrews 12:5-11. "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (ESV) Discipline, Not Punishment I have talked with Christians who are going through hard times maybe the loss of their health or a job or a loved one. And they have said, I guess punishing me. Now I know that some translation of this passage in Hebrews use the word punish but that s not the right word. God disciplines his children but he doesn t punish them. To say that God is punishing me is to say that Jesus Christ didn t suffer enough on the cross for our sins. We re told plainly in Hebrews 7:27 that He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. (NIV) And when before the throne I stand in Him complete, Jesus died my soul to save, my lips will still repeat: Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow. There can be no more payment for sin. All the punishment that our sin deserved was laid on Christ. So if you are a Christian and in pain this morning or feeling loss this morning, you are not being punished. You are being disciplined. Punishment is punitive. Discipline is purifying. God doesn t punish his people. But he does perfect his people. Conclusion For the believer, God is a refining fire, a purifying fire, a perfecting fire. His purpose is our Christlikeness. No child of God ever became like Jesus without the discipline of a Father s loving, refining fire. But to the unbeliever, God is a consuming fire described in fearsome language by the prophet Isaiah: See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire. Isaiah 30:27 (NIV) The refining fire is always safe; always good; always purposeful; always redemptive.

5 5 The name Joe Bayly doesn t mean very much to you. But it should. Joe Bayly and his wife Marylou ought to be a hero and heroine to us all. Let me tell you their story. Joe and Marylou Bayly were a real-life couple whom God tested beyond what I think I could ever begin to endure. Joe was the President of the David C. Cook Christian publishing company and wrote a brilliant column entitled Out of My Mind for 25 years for Eternity magazine.. They had a happy family. They had three sons, and a daughter. Then, tragedy struck. One of their young sons developed leukemia. At the age of 5, he died. As Joe tells it in his book A View from a Hearse, Danny died in his own bed, with his mother and father next to him, comforting him, loving him, and telling him about Jesus' love and heaven. The family had always spoken of these things, and Danny had responded with the simple faith of a child in what his parents said. But on this day, five-year-old Danny did not want to go to heaven. He wanted to stay, to be with his mom and dad, his brothers and his sister, in his own home. He didn't want to leave all that he knew. But, he did. He did leave. He died that day. Then, God gave the Baylys the hope of new life again. They were expecting another baby, and they rejoiced. But, when the day came, the baby was born with a severe handicap. They named him John, but after eighteen days of fighting for his life, he too died. The Baylys had lost two children. It has been said that the most severe trauma a parent can suffer is the death of a child. The Baylys had lost two sons. A few short years later, their 18-year-old son, Joe, had a freak sledding accident. He was a hemophiliac, and he bled to death. Seven years. Three sons. Three deaths. Years later Joe published a book called Psalms of My Life. He had written psalms in response to the good and the bad that had come into his life. Sometime after the loss of his third son, Joe wrote A Psalm While Packing Books. This cardboard box Lord - see it says: Bursting limit 200 lbs. per square inch. The box maker knew how much strain the box would take, what weight would crush it. You are wiser than the box maker, Maker of my spirit my mind my body. Does the box know when pressure increases close to the limit? No, it knows nothing. But I know when my breaking point is near. And so I pray, Maker of my soul, Determiner of the pressure within, upon me, Stop it, lest I be broken. Or else change the pressure rating of this fragile container of Your grace so that I may bear more.

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