Test the Lord’s love, not His patience.

Sermon for Thanksgiving Eve, November 27, 2019

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Malachi 3:6-18  ⁶ Certainly I, the Lord, do not change.  That is why you, sons of Jacob, have not come to an end.  ⁷ Since 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 Armies.  You say, “In what way should we return?”  ⁸ Will a man rob God?  You are robbing me!  You say, “How have we robbed you?”  In regard to the tithe and the special offering.  ⁹ You are being cursed since all of you, the whole nation, are robbing me.  ¹⁰ Bring the complete tithe to the storehouse so that there may be food in my house.  Just test me in this, says the Lord of Armies.  See whether I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour down blessing on you, until there is more than enough.  ¹¹ I will restrain the devouring swarm so that it will not destroy your produce from your soil.  Your vine in the field will not be without fruit, says the Lord of Armies.  ¹² All the nations will call you blessed, because you will be a delightful land, says the Lord of Armies.  ¹³ Your words against me are harsh, says the Lord.  You ask, “How have we spoken against you?”  ¹⁴ You say, “Serving God is pointless.  What have we gained by carefully keeping his requirements and by walking around like mourners before the Lord of Armies?  ¹⁵ Now we will call the arrogant blessed.  Even evildoers are built up.  They even test God and get away with it.”  ¹⁶ Then those who fear the Lord spoke with each other.  The Lord gave them his attention and listened.  A book of remembrance was written in front of him for those who fear the Lord and have regard for his name.  ¹⁷ They will be mine, says the Lord of Armies, on the day I make them my treasured possession.  I will spare them just as a man spares his son who serves him.  ¹⁸ Then you will again see the distinction between a righteous person and a wicked person, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. (EHV)

Test the Lord’s love, not His patience.

Dear blessed of the heavenly Father,

            Malachi said, “You have made the Lord weary.” (Malachi 2:17)  Isn’t that a horrifying condemnation that came out of Malachi’s mouth against Israel?  How awful to hear that your behavior had led God to grow tired of blessing you.  I don’t think there is anything more devastating that one could hear than this condemning phrase, “You have made the Lord weary.” 

Now, as we read through our sermon text, no one would be surprised if you got the idea that the people of Israel were being condemned for their lousy offerings to the Lord, yet the offerings, and all the other sins condemned in this book, are really only symptoms of the real problem in their relationship with the Lord.  Israel’s real problem was that they didn’t fear, love, or trust God with all their hearts, souls, and minds.  They weren’t afraid to offend God.  They said it didn’t pay to serve Him.  Perhaps they thought He didn’t exist or didn’t care what they did, or maybe they thought God was too feeble to notice their lack of faith and trust in the God who had loved them as a husband.

If you have heard me preach before, you most likely already know what comes next, but I have to ask, are we any different?  Do we really, truly fear, love, and trust God Almighty as we should?  Or do we, like those long-ago Israelites, shortchange God in our offerings, in our service, in our love to our neighbor, in our family relationships, and especially, in our trust in His goodness?  Any honest reflexion will have to admit that yes, we too are guilty.  We too have times when we do things we know are wrong, but we assume (hope) God is too busy elsewhere to notice our sins.  Likewise, we have at times neglected worship, prayer, Bible study, and personal devotions in His Word because we give higher priority to work, family, or hobby, robbing God of His place of honor in our lives.  We too sometimes offer God what is left over in our wallets rather than make a first fruits gift that shows how much we trust Him.  We too sometimes imagine that God doesn’t know what He is doing, or care.

Dear friends, I know these accusations sound awful, and they should, because we all are guilty.  Perhaps I more than anyone else, because I know the depth of my sin, and still, I find myself sinning more.  I don’t say that to gain your sympathy, or to try to soften the blow of the accusations.  Rather, I want all of us to hear God’s faithful testimony in this text, and I want to see all of us go about our lives making sure that we Test the Lord’s love, not His patience.

As the Lord brings His condemning words upon Israel, notice even more His kindness.  He reminds us: “Certainly I, the Lord, do not change.”  “Return to me, and I will return to you.”  “Just test me in this,” says the Lord of Armies.  “See whether I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour down blessing on you, until there is more than enough.”

Twenty-four hundred years later, God still hasn’t changed.  He remains faithful to every promise.  He continues to pour out sunshine and rain upon the good and the wicked.  He continues to bless us in ways too many to count.  Most importantly, “He is patient for your sakes, not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

This past year has certainly had its challenges.  Most people likely wondered how it would all turn out.  Would the crops make it to maturity?  Would the yields cover the cost?  Would our labor make any return?  Yet, an honest examination of these questions shows that we test God’s patience by the weak faith and doubt behind them.  In contrast, the writer to the Hebrews wrote, “Faith is being sure about what we hope for, being convinced about things we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1).

To be honest, farmers and businesspeople are likely better at this than the rest of us.  Farmers pour many thousands of dollars of their money, or their bankers’ money, into the soil every spring confident that the seeds will grow and produce a crop.  If they didn’t believe that, they wouldn’t take the risk.  Yet, having been a farmer for several decades, I know how weak faith can be even there.  Businesses too invest small fortunes in the hope of making a living and perhaps increasing wealth.  But do we adequately remember God’s gracious providence in all of this?

I pray that we do, yet I know I often fall short.  I have to keep reminding myself that no matter how bad the news makes things sound, Jesus is still in control of this crazy world.  No matter what the politicians might say, or the activists scream, the Lord really does have things firmly in hand, and we have His promise though St. Paul, “that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

The Lord of Armies sent His prophet to say to Israel, “Just test me in this.  See whether I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour down blessing on you, until there is more than enough.”  Thanksgiving is a time when we look around at all God does for us daily.  Especially in the United States of America, we have blessings so amazing that far too many of us don’t even notice the wealth anymore except to covet what some neighbors have.  Yet, consider that in contrast to so many other places on earth, we can turn a faucet in our homes and safe drinking water comes out, enough that we can bath in it, wash our clothes in it, even go so far as to wash our cars and driveways with water pure enough to drink.

Activists scream about pollution, but for most of us, the air is clean, and readily available—though no effort of ours.  We drive vehicles that are extremely reliable compared to yesteryears.  I know I complain about some of the nuances of our health care and insurance systems, but by and large, we have medical care that most of the world’s population, and certainly most of history’s people, could only dream about.  We worried all year about the crops, but in the end, most of them turned out okay, and insurance will help many of the rest.  Who one hundred years ago could have imagined 200 hundred bushel per acre corn?  Today, we have come to expect it.  When we ignore God’s hand in all our many blessings, or give too much credit to ourselves, we really are testing God’s patience.

Now, having considered our failures and shortcomings, I want to remind you about the most important way God shows His love to us.  Malachi said, “Then those who fear the Lord spoke with each other.  The Lord gave them his attention and listened.”  Those who feared God didn’t accuse Him of any neglect; rather, they encouraged each other as we do in worship, and they begged God for mercy they knew they didn’t deserve.  And God heard them!  In fact, God heard us pleading for mercy long before we ever thought to cry out our need.  He saw our desperate condition before He created the world, and He planned our forgiveness and salvation.

God said, “A book of remembrance was written in front of him for those who fear the Lord and have regard for his name.  They will be mine,” says the Lord of Armies, “on the day I make them my treasured possession.  I will spare them just as a man spares his son who serves him.”  When the disciples rejoiced for the power they were given in Jesus’ name, He told them, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names have been written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20)  What a great God is ours!  Though we deserved nothing but His anger, God loved us from the beginning.  He provides for us far more richly than anyone could expect.  But especially, He loved us enough to send His own Son to live for us and to die for the guilt of our weakness of faith and trust.

Our message from this text in Malachi is Test the Lord’s love, not His patience.  We test the Lord’s love when we believe without any doubt that all our sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake.  We test the Lord’s love when we make our offerings not according to rules, or by looking to see if the church has enough money to pay its bills, but when we look at the blessings God gives us and we humbly thank and praise Him in the way He leads us to give.  We rightly test God’s love when we don’t entertain any worry but put our complete confidence in the love of our Savior who having died and risen for us, now rules all things from His throne in heaven.  We test the Lord’s love when we face illness or death with sure confidence in the resurrection of Christ Jesus, knowing that our bodies, too, will be raised from the grave to live glorified forever in heaven.

Dear friends, there was a day when God made you His treasured possession.  He wrote your name in the Book of Life the day He washed you clean of all sin in baptism, the day He drowned your sinful nature and raised up in you a new life of faith, the day He gave you hope in Jesus by the hearing of the Gospel.  Through faith in Christ, God spares you of any condemnation.  Through faith in Christ, God loves you as His own dear child.  Through Word and Sacrament, the Lord continues to build up the faith that saves you, so that we never have to wonder or doubt about God’s love for us. 

No matter what this world may send our way, God will never give you anything less than what He knows is best for you.  As you give thanks tomorrow, remember that this isn’t a one-day event, but rather the life of the faithful believer who remembers that God’s love is unlimited even when His patience is not.  Test the Lord’s love, not His patience.  Amen.

Amen.  Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and might belong to our God forever and ever.  Amen.