Weary of Waiting for Messiah

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Malachi 3:12-4:6
December 8, 2024

Malachi 3:12-4:6: “You have said harsh things against me,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’ You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’”

Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name. “They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,” says the LORD Almighty. “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Sermon Outline

1. Background

• Return from exile

• Weary of waiting

• God’s list of grievances

2. The general problem: religion wasn’t paying off

• They had religion

• But their hearts weren’t in it

• From a resentful heart come resentful words

3. How true believers responded to Malachi’s preaching

4. God’s reaction to the conversations of believers

• God paid attention

• What God did for these believers

5. The future Day of the Lord

• What unbelievers experience

• What believers experience

6. God’s closing words

• “Remember the law of my servant Moses”

• “I will send Elijah”

Stewardship Failure and the Gospel

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Speaker: Wendell Stoltzfus
Scripture: Malachi 3:6-12
December 31, 2023

Malachi 3:6-12: “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

2. Robbing God

• Admonition

• Extortion

• Condemnation

3. Returning to God

• Exhortation

• Declaration

• Protection

• Reputation

4. Practical applications