From the preacher to the people...sermon post...Malachi 2.10-16

 


I thought it appropriate at this time of the year to lead with a photo taken by a good friend named Chuck from Maine.  The location is called Josh Stream.  Some of us have the opportunity to live in a place where the 4 seasons bring about their own beauty.  It has made me think of my own life and what season I am in.  What is the beauty around me that God has placed there for me to take in?

A little factoid.  I have preached through Malachi before.  I did 4 sermons with each one covering a chapter.  The average sermon length was 42.5 minutes.  This time I am breaking up the book into the 7 burdens or oracles of God to His people.  So the passages are less than a chapter length but the average sermon length is up to 50 minutes.  Some might say I am going in the wrong direction!

Speaking about marriage and divorce within a text is always tough because it would be a really long sermon touching on all the Bible instructs us about the subject.  Saying that, I am thankful for all the Bible does say and the comfort and guidance it gives to us as Christians.  The challenge of this passage was to keep with what God was saying to the people of God at the time and reinforce the principle found throughout the Bible from the Old Testament and into the New Testament. 

One principle is for the people of God going into marriage.  The people of God are to marry the people of God.  The other principle is for the people of God who are already married.  We are to remember and respond with the fact that God was at our wedding ceremony and a portion of the Spirit is in the union (Malachi 2.15).  May we be faithful and not faithless toward one another.  Being faithless is treating the other without the faith that has been given to us by God and is described by God as treating the other treacherously.  Sounds serious to me.

The passage finishes with saying the phrase twice, "So guard yourselves in your spirit..." (Malachi 2.15-16).  We are to guard, keep, give heed, observe ourselves in the area of our spirit.  The word "spirit" is word pictured toward the nose, the olfactory organ of our body.  We smell things to make sure they are okay to wear, drink or eat.  We give it the "sniff test" before we get any closer or consume something.  So we are to sniff life in light of God's instruction.  At times it is not going to smell right and therefore we need to act accordingly.  Our time with God and His word trains our spiritual nose to know what is best for us.  

The world will throw at us many things that might look really good but when we sniff at it with God's word, it doesn't smell right.  Trust your spiritual nose because you have been faithfully taking in instruction of a faithful Father who loves His children to the extent of the very giving of Himself for your eternal benefit.  Whatever you are looking at that looks good has not done that for you.

Adam



A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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