Malachi – CountUp

Greetings my friends ! It’s Sunday August 30TH 2020, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us continue to praise and worship Christ our Savior !

This past Friday evening I got the call to preach to my church body on this Sunday morning. I immediately went to work to finalize my sermon. I’ll be preaching out of the Book of Malachi with a sermon that I wrote in January and February (before COVID-19). It’s the first part of hopefully a multi-part message series on the prophet Malachi. I haven’t started writing the second part yet. I was waiting until I had the opportunity to preach the first part before I began work on the next part.

In this first part I’ll be covering Malachi’s message on God’s love for Israel – as well as his message on corrupt priests.

Scripture will be mostly from the Old Testament with 4 additional verses from Romans.

My “call-to-action” to close-out my sermon will be based on Romans 10:14-15:

How can they – call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him ?
How can they – believe in Him if they have never heard about Him ?
How can they – hear about Him unless someone tells them ?
How will anyone go and tell them without being sent ?
That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring Good News !”

You know I always get excited and look forward to “Sermon Sunday” – those Sundays when I get the opportunity to share my heart with my brothers and sisters of my church body. I am blessed for these opportunities to preach God’s Word from the pulpit.

Even if these opportunities to preach were to diminish or disappear – I’d still write sermons at home. I’d continue to share them with you – my brothers and sisters in Christ – my friends and neighbors worldwide who follow this blog. My sermons are open letters to God.

If you’re a believer and follower of God then I encourage you to talk to Him, sing for Him, dance for Him, and write to Him. Do it all for Him. Share with others what God places in your heart. Be a messenger of God’s Good News.

If you’re not yet a believer and follower of God then I encourage you to keep an open mind and an open heart. I’d like to share with you the God that I know. He’s the God that loves you immensely. He’s got a fantastic journey that awaits you. It’s created and customized just for you. He’ll wait for you until you’re ready to accept Him.

5 weeks ago I announced here on Sunday Scripture that I had recently completed writing a future sermon titled “Church & State”, and that I had begun writing my next sermon titled “Malachi & Messages”. That’s still a tentative title, but as I wrap-up the writing of it I think (so far) it makes sense to leave that as the title. I’m into Page 8 of “Malachi & Messages”, so I’m essentially at the 30-minute mark of what will likely be a 40-minute sermon. (I don’t use some fancy sermon-writing software. I simply use Microsoft Word, and each page generally represents 4 minutes of preaching.)

“Malachi & Messages” covers Malachi’s first 2 of 6 messages on God’s love for Israel (1:2-5) and the calling-out of corrupt priests and their worthless sacrifices (1:6-2:9). Once I complete this one I’ll immediately begin working on my follow-up sermon of Malachi’s 3RD message on faithfulness.

This could end-up being a 4-part message series later this year. There’s a lot of great material within those 6 messages, 4 chapters, and 55 verses.

Here’s an excerpt from “Malachi & Messages”:

… You know that out of the 55 verses in the Book of Malachi – that 47 of them are spoken by God ? 47 out of 55 verses. Over 85% of Malachi – is our God speaking. You wanna learn more about our God and gain wisdom from Him ? Read Malachi, but don’t read the book in 6 minutes. Read it slowly. Read it – one verse at a time.

Chapter 1 Verse 1 sets the tone for the next 54 verses, and it’s 1 of the 8 verses in which God is not speaking:

This is the message that the LORD gave to Israel through the prophet Malachi. (1:1)

So it’s the prophet Malachi – giving a message – to the homeland. It’s the LORD speaking through Malachi, and it’s actually a series of messages – a series of 6 messages on topics such as God’s love for Israel, faithfulness, repentance, and the impending Judgment Day.

Oh ! – and Malachi – means “My messenger” in Hebrew. Malachi was God’s Messenger – just as you and I – we – are God’s Messengers.

What does a messenger do – according the Bible ? A messenger – carries and sends and spreads a message. A messenger evangelizes. What do you do when you evangelize ? You spread and preach the Gospel. What’s “preach” ? How about “proclaim” and “teach” – “preach”. I am going to teach you what I believe to be true, and I will proclaim it to be the Truth. What’s the Gospel ? The Gospel is the Good News of God. So a messenger – you and I – we – preach God’s Good News – His Message – to the masses. We are God’s messengers. He chose us to do that.

Malachi was God’s messenger. He was a writer, and he wrote letters, and messages, and sermons to the people. He was a Proclaimer. He was a Teacher. He was a Preacher …