God Himself has shown us how He will prepare us for the day of His coming. He will refine us and purify us through Christ.
In our text for today, Malachi is pointing towards a problem that the postexilic people had. It was a serious issue because it was the exact same dilemma which landed them in exile in the first place. The returned exiles had gone rogue again and were not worshipping God rightly. They were passing off poor substitutes as sacrifices instead of the real thing God asked for. They were being unfaithful and treating God as if He did not matter at all and that they only mattered the most. So, the Lord is having a series of disputes with His people because of their unfaithfulness
There is some irony in these disputations. God’s people should not be having any of these problems at all. They are fresh off of returning from exile. You would think the lesson took? Instead, they are back to the same old thing of calling “that which is evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). The excuse His people have for their lack of faithfulness: Why is it important to obey God when it seems like the wicked prosper with no consequence? They are questioning the justice of God while being unjust to Him themselves. Where is God when bad things happen?
This rhetorical question invites us to develop a teaching on “theodicy.” The classic statement of the problem of theodicy rolls out this way:
“God is all powerful (so he must be able to prevent suffering). God is good (so he must want to prevent suffering). Yet, suffering exists. Assenting to any two of these propositions presents no problem, but since the three together appear contradictory, various attempts have been made to negate one.”[1]
As you develop this teaching in the sermon it is important your preaching does not suddenly become a lecture. Grounding this development in God’s answer to the problem through the sufferings of Christ and His subsequent resurrection will keep you from making it a teaching about the “information” on theodicy but, instead, a teaching grounded in the proclamation of Christ.
Verse 1 of our text is a reply from God to the question asked earlier. The Lord’s answer is about action and resolution. He is sending someone who has a message from Him. You would expect it to be Jesus, but it is (drum roll please) John the Baptist. If this seems anticlimactic, you can develop the church’s feeling of the same during the season of Advent. What does the lighting of the Advent wreath reveal (drum roll please) more waiting. In fact, the Advent wreath is a countdown timer bidding us to wait until Jesus comes. But it is not a wait without the promise of peace. God is coming to His people. He is on the verge of acting. You will see. He is coming soon!
For the postexilic people it is letting them know there is still time before the Lord comes to His Temple so they can know and worship Him rightly. For us, it is good to know there is still time for us to draw near to Him in worship before the great day of Christ’s second coming. All of that peace, though, is only possible because of God’s first coming to us in Bethlehem. There we have the peace of God in the manger which was led to the cross and walked out of an empty tomb for you. God Himself has shown us how He will prepare us for the day of His coming. He will refine us and purify us through Christ who endured the furnace of God’s judgement for us, making His blood the fuller’s soap to wash away all our sin (verse 2).
For us, it is good to know there is still time for us to draw near to Him in worship before the great day of Christ’s second coming.
As preachers, we may be drawn to the valuables in verse 3 and apply them to our hearers, but I would caution against such a sentimental move. Instead, the only one who bears a “gift with righteousness” to God in a worthy manner was no “son of Levi.” It is the only begotten Son of God for us, who redeemed us “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:18–19).” It may be worth developing the fact that the sons of Levi themselves had to have their robes of office (righteousness) put upon them after a sacrifice for sin had been made to atone for them. After the blood of the lamb came, the fine adornments were placed upon them. Much the same must be done for us. We are not the precious things that came from the fire. God is not refining us. Atonement must be made for us, for our sin, and then God in His grace places His righteousness upon us.
This is the critical connection between John the Baptist and Christ in our text. The “sweet gift” (verse 4) to God’s people is from ancient times. It is “of old.” Yes, it would point to Elijah, but you must go back further to something even older still. You must return to the oldest and best promise of God to send a Messiah (Gen 3:15) in the person of Jesus. This is how God will draw near to us, in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. John the Baptist would stand like a lit candle pointing towards Christ’s coming as the Lamb of God (John 1:36) who will be the once-for-all offering for the sins of all people (1 Peter 3:18).
Highlighting John the Baptist in your preaching might seem unsettling. However, we would do well to remember it was John’s boney finger pointing to the peace that was fulfilled for all people. John the Baptist’s pointing to Christ is an excellent reminder for the Church of what it is all about. Pointing to Christ is the mission of the Church. In an age when churches and its leaders do a lot of pointing at themselves or at their programs or at their perceived successes and excesses, we finally have an Advent example which reminds us that it is all about Christ.
In fact, one of the last things spoken of John the Baptist in the gospels is in John 10:41 where it says: “He did no great miracles, but everything he said about Jesus was true.” I cannot think of a better way to be known. It is true that, for most of us, we will not be remembered for any great miracles, but may it always be true that everything we said about Jesus, those things were true.
A nice way to conclude the sermon may be to emphasize something brought up in verse 6. Amid the changeability of the people, God Himself remains unchangeable. God proclaims He does not change, and that graciousness of God means His people will not be cut off or consumed. What great hope as we wait for the day of His second coming. God has given us peace through the “lamb who was slain and yet reigns” (Revelation 5:12; 13:8). It is the untainted offering made by God to purify His people so they can stand before Him robed in His righteousness alone. As a result, we are a people redeemed to stand before God in His Kingdom forever.
Perhaps a good structure for this sermon would be the Four Pages Structure:
“Paul Scott Wilson has popularized the Law/Gospel structure through his work, “The Four Pages of the Preacher.” In this work, Wilson speaks of four rhetorical units in the sermon, two of them based upon law and two based upon gospel: (1) trouble in the text, (2) trouble in the world, (3) grace in the text, and (4) grace in the world or (1) trouble in the text, (2) grace in the text, (3) trouble in the world, and (4) grace in the world.”[2]
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out out 1517’s resources on Malachi 3:1–7.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Malachi 3:1–7.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach Malachi 3:1–7.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
Lectionary Podcast- Dr. Jeffrey Pulse of Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN walks us through Malachi 3:1–7.
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[1] Steven P. Mueller, ed. Called to Believe, Teach, and Confess: An Introduction to Doctrinal Theology, vol. 3, Called by the Gospel. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005. 123.
[2] https://concordiatheology.org/sermon-structs/dynamic/lawgospel-structure/
