Malachi - The God We Built

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

through the prophets for just a small season. Pretty long season and that's okay. We've been trying to hit every single one of them in the Homeward Bound series because that's the that was the mission of all of the prophets of God is to do what? Call people home. And so we are here at the last one in the Old Testament according for our canon, Malachi. And when the author of Malachi because Malachi means the messenger, so there is kind of a debate whether it's the name of the prophet or it's anonymous and it's just the messenger. When the author penned the last sentence, it kicked off 400 years of silence of any prophetic voice that we that is in our Bible.

The next page that we turn to in our Bibles is Matthew after you go through that weird blank page right after Malachi. We go to Matthew. It's 400 years of silence. And who Malachi is, I'm going to say preaching, he's swinging. Malachi is swinging. Malachi comes out swinging and he's not swinging at sinners and pagans just like most of the prophets aren't. They're not swinging at the outsiders that are evil. No, he's swinging at the most religious people in the room that look great. Like not even uppity, but just regular just the people and how they worshiped. Because the prophets in the Bible felt where God was trying to go and they watched the people who had some sort of security or some type of power or privilege find ways to cash in on God instead of carrying the message forward.

Gott Mit Uns

And so that's what I want to prepare you for because the Malachi is set up as an argument between God and the people but not simply an argument, it's a family argument. Now you guys know if you get in an argument with someone which I know no one ever does in traffic or at Walmart, it's a different type of almost superficial argument than what takes place inside the house, right? Do wounds or when it's inside the house, we're dealing with something much deeper. Much more intimate. Much more painful at times. And so that's where Malachi is taking us. But before we jump into the argument that's going on in the house, let's go to somewhere safer like World War I.

The Great War. Great War, it's about six five six seven months old. Pretty much just started. Two lines of trenches run from the North Sea all the way down to Switzerland. And in the frozen mud of the town of Flanders there are two armies that are dug in so close to each other they can kind of they can get a whiff of what each other's cooking for dinner every night. And every German soldier in those trenches, let's see, do we have my slides here? Oh, we do. Yes. Every German soldier in those trenches is wearing a standard uniform and they're wearing a standard belt and every single one of them has a brass belt buckle, and on that brass belt buckle is stamped three words.

And those three words are Gott mit uns. God is with us. Now, hop out of the trench and walk across no man's land, which is called no man's land because no man is left standing in that land, through the barbed wire and the craters where the artillery landed, and you hop in the trench of the other side, which is the British line. And over there you have the chaplains that are praying over the soldiers every single week. They're blessing the soldiers. They're blessing the weapons. Here's a French postcard of a priest blessing the bayonet and rifle of a French soldier, you know, "May it find its target."

The Christmas Truce

By God, who is where? With us. Yeah, we're catching on. Both armies Both armies are praying to the same God. The armies that are believe God is with them over here with their guns are pointing them at the army over there that believes God is with them with their guns and belt buckles and so on and so forth. Both empires are certain that he is in their trench. You know you understand the irony because nothing has changed. So, then we come to Christmas Eve. The night goes quiet and somewhere along the German trench line candles start to appear popping up at the edge of the trenches. They're little Christmas trees that their family sent them from home, little itty-bitty things.

Do we have it? Do we have one? There's one on the left there. Just little Christmas trees. They're trying to have some type of recollection of home, right? It's Christmas Eve. And they begin to sing this song, Stille Nacht. And the British boys on the other side, they know the melody, they know the song, it's very familiar to them because it's Silent Night. They know this song. So, they begin singing the song back in English with the Germans that are singing it in German. Same song on the same night about the same God two languages floating over the barbed wire. And the next morning, men started climbing up out of the trenches unarmed walking towards each other across the most dangerous ground on planet Earth at the time.

And they shake hands. And they trade chocolate, and they trade cigarettes, and buttons off of their coats for souvenirs. And a couple of spots, a ball gets produced somehow, and they're playing soccer with each other on Christmas morning. And in some areas, there's reports that they helped each other bury their dead and spoke words over the fallen praying to their God. For one morning not the God of their belt buckles or their chaplains, the God that blesses their rifles, not that God, but the actual God they both thought they were serving broke through. And the generals were horrified. On both sides orders came down quickly.

Fraternization became a punishable offense for trying to even talk to the enemy. And in Christmases after guess when artillery firing was scheduled to make sure this wasn't happened again. This wouldn't. The artillery barrages were deliberately scheduled through Christmas Eve, so something like that would never take place again. The men of course went back to their trenches and they went back to their killing. Four more years of it with gas and flamethrowers and tanks and barbed wire and mud. And with God with us stamped on their belt buckles. The entire time. See do we have any Yeah, there's a good picture of both sides.

Just Yeah, you want to get you guys want to get a selfie together? Get a group. That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life, guys. It's It's That's amazing. But they went back to killing. Two empires had taken the God of heaven and stamped him onto their equipment and they had molded him into their national chaplain who blesses whatever nation whatever their nation already wanted to do. And the one morning when the real God shows up with actual human connection and presence singing through the voices of enemy boys in dark the empire ordered him back in the box. Get back where you belong.

And begin shelling the silence of peace. Because the real God will not take orders. But the one on the belt buckle? He does whatever he's told. That's the whole appeal of this fabrication of a God that serves us. And that's the move that we kind of all like to do or attempted to do. Molding God into our image. The stamping, the creation of the God cut down enough to fit whatever our cause is. You know, you have a hill that you will die on. You're passionate about. You're zealous about. All I need to do now is wrap God around it. And then if I wrap God around my hill that I'll die on, well no one can argue with me because God mit uns.

Six Rounds With the Faithful

God is with me. That's the book of Malachi. The last prophet's whole argument here. So, you all ready? Yeah, you all are. You don't have a choice. So, who is the people the congregation, if you will, that God is about to come out swinging at? They're the people who actually had a grievance. They felt betrayed by a promise. So, Malachi's preaching around 460-ish BC and it was just 80 years earlier when the exiles were coming home from Babylon, which we've talked about the series. They were there for a whole generation. And through prophets like Haggai and Zechariah, God makes some pretty stout promises to them, specifically about the temple that they are commanded to rebuild.

It's said that it will have greater glory than Solomon's temple. The heavens will shake with it. All these great things. It will be amazing. Everything's going to be back the way it was. And they finished in around 516-ish BC and they dedicate the temple and the glory of God never shows up. It never comes. Nothing happens. Not like the first. I mean, the first you had the thunder and the clouds and you had fire coming down from heaven and it's amazing. And this one they said, "Okay, it's dedicated." Nothing happened. No cloud, no fire. Generations grew up in this gap between the promises that were spoken and they had expectations for and the promises when they were finally going to be kept.

And Malachi's generation had gone a bit numb in some of their faithfulness in some of the areas with God. And you can hear it in the very first exchange of the book. So the whole book of Malachi, and you know my intention for you guys is to you hopefully to get excited about the Bible and what it is and to go home and read Malachi. Read through it. That's that's my heart's desire. But the whole book of Malachi is built on six boxing rounds of arguments between God and the people. God and Judah going back and forth. And that's kind of the context. And so we're we're going to jump into round one, right?

You ready? We go and fight. Here we go. So a prophecy the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi, "I have loved you." First thing God says, "says the Lord." "But you ask, how have you loved us?" "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? Declares the Lord. Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I hated." "And I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals. They will be called the wicked land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, 'Great is the Lord even beyond the borders of Israel.'" So God speaks first, right?

And says, "I have loved you." And the congregation answers back, "Have you though?" This You can feel the attitude. "Really? Are you sure?" "How? How have you loved us? Prove it. Show us Show us the resume, the receipts. Show us What do you What do you mean?" And so first I want to point out so who talks like this? This is going to be the whole point of what Malachi what the build-up is. An atheist does not ask that question. A pagan doesn't ask that question. A stranger has no standing to ask a question like that and to accuse God in such a passive-aggressive way. The only people who can ever say, "How have you loved me?" are people inside of the relationship.

A wife says it across the kitchen table at midnight or a son says something like that through his bedroom door. That is a vocalized wound. It's not a courtroom full of strangers, it's the family. And notice who these people think they are. They're not backsliders in their own eyes. They have the temple. They're at the temple. They're bringing offerings to God. They're keeping the calendar. They in their in their convenient calculations of everything that's going on, they come to this conclusion that God is the one that has breached the contract here. They have audited God and they've kind of found him guilty.

They don't think they're the problem. They think that they are truly are the faithful ones and they deserve some type of recognition. And Malachi is not a sermon to people who have left the faith like some of the other prophets. Malachi is it's a sermon to people who are certain they've kept it with the integrity that God requires. So, with that, we'll go ahead and proceed with the hurt. Now, watch what God does with the wound that they've just spoken to him. Because he had options. I mean, this is a god of all of the options. He can thunder and lightning strike and he's done it before, you know.

Instead, what's he say? Was Esau Jacob's brother? Right? The first thing God reaches for is the family photo album. You doubt my love? Let me tell you about your brother, the twins. Same father, same womb. Same starting line. And look where the stories went. We spoke about in Obadiah. What Edom did to Israel, to Judah, and that's what he's referring to. Esau's hill country sits in the rubble with jackals in the ruins. And you, you went into the fire of Babylon and where are you now? You came back out. You're now standing in a rebuilt Jerusalem. You're standing with the temple on the mountain. And you're having an argument.

Right? The fact that there is anybody left to ask how have you loved us is the answer to how have you loved us. I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated. So, in covenant language, those are not feelings, those are choices. Chosen and not chosen. Okay? Same idiom Yeshua uses when he says hate your father and mother. Two brothers, two callings. And history puts the difference on display. Then in verse five, the last round of the last line of round one. You will see it with your own eyes and say great is the Lord, even beyond the borders of Israel. Beyond the borders. So, file those words away cuz that's going to come up again.

Because round one now ends with God pointing past the property line of the home. Out toward the nations. And when he comes back to that, he's going to well, it's another it's another it's an uppercut. And that's that's the first round. It's a pretty short book. Pretty short book, right? That's round one. Already done. A God who opens with love and a congregation that answers with an audit of that love. And a God who answers the audit instead of just ending the conversation and walking out. The whole book is that rhythm. Up and down. Statement, talk back, answer six times in a row. The arguing is not the scary part.

The Offering Plate Is the Polygraph

In a failing relationship, the scary part is the day when the arguing does what? It stops. So, we're not going to walk through all six rounds this morning, obviously, but everyone is pretty much everyone of them is exposed as the same thing that's going on. Just with a little bit of a different angle. What they hand him at the altar is kind of what comes what comes next. And what they say about him with their mouths and well, let's just jump in. Next round, audit runs the other way. Still same chapter, Malachi 1:8. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? This is God speaking.

And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor. Persian governor, the overseer, right? Cuz they're still under Persian control. Present that to your governor. Will he accept you and show you favor? Says Yahweh of hosts. So, he's speaking to the priests, the professionals, and they're accepting blind animals at the altar of God. They're accepting sick animals at his altar. They're accepting the animals that are just going to die anyway, and people are bringing. Yeah, it's intense bring Yeah, it's starting to And God's answer is of sharp for sure.

Yeah, try that with your pagan governor that's overseeing you. Try paying your Persian taxes in damaged goods and see how far you get. And it's rough because it's just not it's not it's not just sloppy faith implementation, you know, that's not like casual worship. It's intentional. You give the empire your best because you actually believe the empire is real. The empire has consequences. The empire will show up at your door, and you give God the dying ones. And God is saying, this tells me exactly which one of us you actually believe in. Poly Offering Plate is the polygraph. Because nobody hands garbage to a king that they believe is real, right?

The blind lamb. These type of offerings are the measurement, the exact size of the God that they've created in their heads. Before anyone said anything crossed to God or odd in it to God or heretical to God in this argument, they had already rebuilt who their God is. And they obviously rebuilt him a lot smaller. They cut him down, trimmed him down. They built him small enough to accept trash and stay quiet about it. And the religion just kept running the whole time and everyone thought it was fine. See, when people begin to worship the empire around them and treat that as their god, it does not empty the sanctuaries.

Incense Beyond the Border

It fills the sanctuaries with people whose god has quietly become the chaplain for whatever the empire is going to do next. Amos caught religion playing the exact role three centuries earlier as we spoke about. Called them as the empire's chaplain, their faux religion. The belt buckle's already stamped, Gott mit uns, with Persian tax receipts in the other pocket. And this is the question. What do I actually give my best to? What do I believe is real enough to cost me something? And who gets the blind lamb? Round one ended with God pointing towards the borders of Israel. And in verse 11, we're going to see where that finger was pointing.

For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name is great among the nations and in every place incense is offered to my name and a pure offering. For my name is great among the nations, says Yahweh of hosts. So, God is in the middle of kind of like cutting down his own priest here for doing a horrible job and showing their true integrity, like who they truly believe their hearts. And he stops to say that his name is great among the nations. The nations, who's in the nations? Pagans are in the nations. While the ordained men in the only authorized temple on earth hand him garbage. He's saying somewhere out there past the border his name is or will be honored.

And it will be honored better than you are honoring me. In the temple, at my altar, with the priesthood, with everything you're totally okay and think you're just you're you're doing great. Enough to bring an accusation to God for not giving them the blessings that they think they're entitled to. God just told the insiders that the outsiders are out worshiping them. Let it hit as raw as possible. Build whatever narrative you need to feel upset like they would be. Who would you be upset about worshiping God and him accepting their worship over yours? And so what's meat is so in the Hebrew here, it doesn't actually tell you when this is happening.

So I read the version that says my name is great among the nations. Many translations say will be great among the nations and you can kind of argue both. But the Hebrew doesn't distinguish it doesn't it doesn't it lets you play with it, which is beautiful. Cuz you can do it both here and now, right? It leaves it open. If it is happening right now God is saying while you, again, while you are scraping your leftovers to bring to my altar out there from sunrise to sunset my name's being honored in places I have never heard of Sinai. And if it is a promise that will happen one day, then God is announcing that the day is coming when the nations will out-worship the people who had the temple and the covenant and the thousand-year head start.

Either way, the nations out-worship the chosen. And there's no tense in which the insiders come out okay with that. Now, think about what it means for the mission. You guys know the mission of the Bible, right? The mission for the calling of Israel. It to come home, of course. But the mission is Genesis 12. Like that's where we Like the whole purpose of the chosen people of God was to be a blessing to all of the kingdoms of the earth. And in you, because of you, everybody will receive blessing. You will know that you're my people when people are blessed by you. Through your seed, this is what's going to happen.

Israel was the chosen delivery system. Carry the name of God to the nations so that the whole world can find its way home. And by Malachi's day, the mission had been inverted, as we've already seen through the series. The delivery system became the obstacle for them. The people chose to show the world that Yahweh is Israel had chosen to manufacture a god that got in the way of people actually seeing the heart of who God is. Because they had trouble seeing through them. Let me put it this way, if we were to talk about today, this is what Yeshua accuses the Pharisees of. There are people who are so bold in their faith and their identity with God and so awful in how they demonstrate love and grace to the outside world that people will never see this God that they serve because they can't see past them.

A God Who Agrees With Everything You Do

We have a very real threat to be able to shut up the gates of heaven by acting one way and not actually believing it. Chapter 2, verse 17. You have wearied Yahweh with your words, but you say, "How have we wearied him?" By saying everyone does evil in the good. Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Yahweh and he delights in them. Sight of God. They've not stopped talking about God. They're talking about him constantly. They've just rewritten his opinions. The things their God delights in are by some miracle for them the exact things that they were already going to do. And what God is pointing out is he's saying that once your God agrees with you about every single thing that you do and every opinion that you have you're not actually worshiping God anymore.

You're worshiping a mirror. And you can prove their God is custom-built inside their minds. Because Malachi shows you the speaker's conduct two pages later two pages later in chapter 3 and verse 5. God lists who these worshippers actually are. And they're adulterers. They are men swearing false oaths. They are men who are underpaying their hired worker on his wages so that they can profit. They are men that are crushing the widow and the orphan. They are men who are shoving the immigrant aside in the name of nationalism. Now put the two verses side by side, the men doing those things are the same men announcing that God delights in the evildoers, obviously.

They don't even realize that they're the ones they're they're it because their God has been so consumed from their image that it endorses everything that they do. They have never departed from the ways of God. Their God that they created in their image that they worship every single week at the temple that doesn't exist. You following? You see how convenient that theology is? And I know we can kind of relate at least a little bit in that, right? Yeah, of course God doesn't mind me doing this, huh? A God who does not repay evil is exactly the God an adulterer needs. Their doctrine is a license they use to not be the people of God while claiming they are.

And again, it's very easy to point at them and say, "Oh, look at those villains. I see it clearly now." No, this is this is a mirror, it's not a window. It's Nobody does this on purpose with their faith. Nobody wakes up and says, "Today I'm going to counterfeit the almighty in my head so that I can feel justified." it happens in a What's that song? The slow fade, right? It happens with just little snippets, little edits with the scissors, just like old Thomas Jefferson, right? Never mind. One small edit at a time. A conviction becomes a little bit too inconvenient, you snip it out. Surely God understands my situation, my anger I have, my zeal, I mean. My grudge, snip, snip, snip.

My wrath on those that I'm supposed to love, I don't need that. That's too cumbersome. Snip, snip. And the editing always goes in one direction. The custom God always ends up hating everyone that you hate and excusing everything that you excuse. And he never once costs you anything. And that's how you know. That's how you know. And the finished product of a faith like that is convenient beyond belief. A God who shares your politics down to the line. Right? People in the political parties don't even agree on their politics, let's be honest. But my God, my God believes in all of my little opinions about politics.

Left and right. A God whose enemies list just happens to match my block list. A God that is deeply, deeply, deeply grieved with other people's sins, but remarkably patient with mine. The soldiers in those trenches did not invent Gott mit uns out of nowhere. A thousand small edits came first, a generation of sermons and songs and certainty. Arguably one of the greatest of sins. Until the God of heaven fit on their belt buckle. I grew up in a church where people would throw around the word demonic. A lot and it would usually land on something.. Usually land on something that they just didn't like.

Yeah, okay, everybody knows. Okay, the gig's up, right? We all know. We've probably done it a couple times. That's demonic. The verse wielders, you know. Clubbers.. Hand the demon word out like business cards, right? Which really takes away to those who have a prophetic spirit and are able to discern. But yeah. Everything's the music, don't like the sound of it, it's demonic. Yoga stretch, demonic. The neighbor's politics are demonic. And grace when it lands on a person they have already condemned also gets called And so this morning I want to take that word back and aim it where the Bible aims it.

A molded self-curated God made in your image is only made to be a weapon to control others and when used in that way a weaponized God a God you use to hurt to bring safety to only yourself, to never extend grace to others, that makes your conviction the same as holy that is demonic. And this is the exact reversal that Yeshua performed in public on the most pious religious respectful men in Israel. Remember what they did? They watched him heal people and announce that he had a demon. They watched mercy walk around on two legs up and down Galilee and they called it satanic. They said it to his face in John 8.

You are a Samaritan and you have a And you know what his comeback was? You are of your father, the devil. And your will is to do your father's desires. We always love to paint these guys as like they were religious, but they were bad religious, right? No, the community loved them. These were the community leaders. These were the well-respected ones. These are the ones who had guided the community through holding on to their faith with integrity through the occupation of Rome. They've seen Rome slaughter their kinsmen for trying to rise up every single moment. These are the leaders. The respected ones.

They would be called humble. This is an out They were defending God when they called Jesus satanic. And he says, "You're You're just like your dad." You're just like your dad. So, welcome to Malachi again. Where the people say they worship God, but they only worship the empire of Satan. Yeah. The Bible's own name for Satan is the accuser, right? Hasatan. And the accuser's signature guys has never been rock music or stretchy pants, yoga, or whatever. And I want to put that The signature of Hasatan throughout the Bible is a religious man with a verse in his hand and a person in his crosshairs. Doing absolute evil with a completely clear conscience.

That's the prophets. That's That's what it is. They labeled healing demonic. And Yeshua labeled the labeling demonic. And that's the pattern across the Bible. Who killed the prophets? Oh, the pagans killed the prophets. No, the pagans didn't kill the prophets. The defenders of God killed the prophets. Who handed over the Messiah? The custodians of orthodoxy. Certain that they were protecting and defending the faith of God. The most dangerous man in the Bible is never a pagan. It's the worshiper holding a custom-built God in their mind. Certain enough to stop listening. Certain enough that God himself could stand in front of him singing and he would just fire artillery at it to hush it up.

Where the Custom God Draws First Blood

These are the wolves in sheep's clothing. Zealous for a God they created in their own heads. The religious world keeps scanning the horizon for the demonic. And the whole time it is standing in the mirror holding a Bible calling the mercy of God by the devil's name. Do you know where Malachi says this custom God draws first blood? Not out in the public square. What kind of argument is this? It's a family argument. When Malachi goes into chapter 2, the order gets very devastating here, but right between the leftover offerings and the rewritten God, we have this scene right here that pops up. And it says, "You cover the altar of Yahweh with tears, with weeping and groaning, because he no longer regards your offering.

But you say, 'Why does he not? I don't understand why God would do this to us.' Because Yahweh was witness between you and your wife of your youth, in whom you have been faithless." That was a bad one, if you didn't catch it. The altar of God is flooded with tears. And the men are baffled. Why does God ignore our offerings? Like we're doing everything. We're right here, worshipping God. And God says, "Yeah, those tears on my altar, a lot of them aren't yours. I was in your house, man. I was a witness between you and your family. I was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, and you dealt treacherously while your religion stayed loud and proud."

Many of those that appear to be the most bold in their faith have likely betrayed their own families at home. The worship was running full volume. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and the one is on Thursday. Full volume. And the family was the collateral of that. They the cannon fodder of that pursuit. And it's it's an old pattern. We relate to it. We know it. It's a temptation we all have the opportunity to grasp onto. But a person with a weaponized God tends to be unbearable to live with. Their God takes the side in every single argument they have. Their God blesses their temper and they call it righteousness.

Their God sanctifies their coldness and they call it, "No, I just have a discernment. I have a conviction." Their God excommunicates their own relatives and again there's no appeal either. When you begin cutting people off in the name of God because the judge has already been bought cuz the judge just lives in their head. Children are watching also. And your kids, believe it or not, do not learn who your God is from your doctrine. Heads up. They learn who your God is from how you fight. From whether being wrong is survivable in your house or not. From whether the man holding the Bible can also say, "You know what?

I'm sorry." A generation of kids have walked out of churches of late. And we keep blaming the culture. And some of it is culture. But some of those kids did not reject the real God at all. They rejected the belt buckle they saw their parents and their churches proudly wearing. I don't blame them. They saw the custom model up close for years. And they wanted no part of that. And honestly, neither does God. Which makes the very last sentence of Malachi, the last sentence of the entire prophetic scope of the Old Testament. Of the Old Testament. Pretty thick. Six rounds. Hopefully you'll go through and review.

And God never once stops answering the argument. Until he did. 400 years of silence after the last sentence. Remember what I mentioned before, the scariest part? So here this close. Hear what he chose to say last, in Malachi in the chapter four. After four chapters of weaponized religion, Malachi chapter four, verses five and six. He says, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of Yahweh comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of children back to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse." Oh, oh, I recognize that verse.

Yeah, that's our that we love that verse. Yeah, you don't really love it now, huh? You got the context. Out of everything God could have said with his final breath of prophecy, he aims it at the household. Hearts turning fathers to children, children back to their parents. Heaven's final test of whether your worship is real is not your dogma or your doctrine or your opinions. It's not your sacrificial count. It's whether your religion softens you toward people in your own home. Because a turned heart cannot be weaponized. Try it. You cannot face your child with an open heart and keep your custom God loaded and locked at all times.

The turning disarms you. That's the whole diagnostic, if you will. And it costs nothing to implement. Look at the direction your heart faces at your table. And you will know which God you serve. The real one or the one on the belt buckle. Or the dollar bill or the coin or whatever propaganda you prefer. And then watch the pattern hold when the silence finally breaks. After the last sentence of Malachi, we turn the page and that blank page again, that 400 years, right? Because the Gospels read just like Malachi 1:11 coming true in slow motion. The nations worshipping God with the incense. The incense Malachi saw rising out past the border finally gets a face in the New Testament.

And one of the first faces we stumble upon is a Roman Centurion that comes to Yeshua in Capernaum. Now, Roman Centurion is an officer of the occupying terrorist army currently in Israel during this time. He's the empire wearing uniform. A man who gets paid from Caesar. Whose job includes taking pagan oaths. Whose presence, if he comes in with soldiers, means that you lost. The most religious men in Israel would not have set foot in this man's house. And they had verses to back up why, because God doesn't want us to. And he comes to Yeshua because of what? He has a servant laying at home paralyzed and suffering.

And Yeshua says, "I'll come and heal him." No problem. And the Roman, he says something no rabbi in Israel had said yet. He says, "Lord, I'm not worthy to you to come under my roof. Just say the word. I'm a man under authority myself, an officer of the empire, right? I have soldiers as well. I tell them and they go do." This enemy of Israel looks at a Galilean handyman and correctly identifies the authority of heaven. While the credentialed men holding all of the Torah scrolls are still running background checks on him, trying to figure out if he's demonic or not. And listen, listen to what that pulls out of Yeshua.

He says, "When Yeshua heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, 'Truly I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found greater faith.'" This is like the ISIS general occupying army. He has more faith in God than the insiders do. "I tell you, many will come from the east and the west and will recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." Do I have more? "No one in Israel." He says it out loud in front of everyone. Yeshua looks at the Gentile soldier's faith and quotes the geography of Malachi 1:11. The incense is starting to rise like Malachi said it would.

And it keeps happening. Up north, in the region of Tyre, Matthew says a Canaanite woman. Canaanites, are they good guys in the Bible? Are they bad guys? Are they really, really bad guys? Yeah, they're over here. A Canaanite woman, a pagan out of the oldest enemy stock in the whole Bible, starts shouting after Yeshua because her daughter's tormented. The disciples want her gone. We don't like her, Yeshua. She's demonic. Send her away, Lord. Even Yeshua tests her. He gives her this hard line about not throwing bread to the dogs under the table. And this Gentile mother doesn't flinch and does not leave.

She says, "Yes, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table." She takes the test and answer it with the answers it with a better covenant logic and answer than those who went to seminary, right? And Yeshua stops in his tracks. And he says, "Oh, woman, great is your faith. Be it done as you desire." Two people in Matthew's gospel get great faith verdicts from the mouth of the Messiah. A Roman officer and a Canaanite mother. And no insiders. Only these two outsiders. How about one more? You know the 10 lepers? 10 lepers that were cleansed on the road? And out of the 10, only one of them came back to give gratitude to Yeshua, right?

Falling at his feet and giving glory to God at the top of his lungs. And who is he? He's He's a Samaritan. The verse 4 identifies him as a Samaritan, not an insider. And Yeshua asks the question that stings. Were not 10 of you guys cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return to give praise to God except who? The foreigner. Incense of Malachi is rising up to God. Exactly like he said. While the custodians of the name of God hold strategy meetings in the temple courts on how to get rid of Yeshua. This is what's going on. And in the end, the climax, they arrest Yeshua, they arrest Jesus.

And in the garden in the garden he says what? He says, "Do you think I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels to come down and kick your butt." That's what he's saying. I could destroy you. Yeshua said he could have been the weapon. He could have become the God on the belt buckle. Every army's dream, by the way. And Yeshua refuses. He instead absorbs the violence instead of blessing it. Religious certainty drove the nails and went home believing that they had defended God that same night. And the real God let it happen rather than become the weapon that they wanted.

That is the power of the cross. That is the message of Yeshua. It is God's permanent refusal to ever be molded in what we would want him to become. Empires have been trying this for thousands of years. Again, banners, coins, wars, elections, family feuds, politicians, everybody tries to mold the God for their own benefit. And he just keeps slipping out of it, doesn't he? Because you can't stamp a crucified Messiah onto a belt buckle. A God who wins by dying does not need to be endorsed. He does not take your side against your enemy. He dies for both of you and calls you both home. And if that bugs you, then it might just be the light reflecting off the mirror in front of you.

Two Audits

So, let me send you guys home with two audits this week. And they're simple. Audit number one is the mirror test. When was the last time God disagreed with you? I mean, actually disagreed. Crossed you. Cost you something. Told you that you were the problem when you were sitting in your resentment and angle and anger and grudge. And finally spoke and said, "Hey, because you're mine, I want to let you know this is totally your fault. And you need to go apologize. And I know it hurts, but it's okay because your ego has no place in the kingdom anyway. It's fine." When was the last time that happened?

Because if you can't remember one, if every conviction your God holds happens to match every conviction you've already had, check the craftsmanship. Because a God who never crosses you, I promise you is a God that you built. The real one has opinion opinions about your grudge and everything. The real one brings up the person that you've written off. The real one disagrees with you the same way that he disagreed with the people holding Bibles in John 8. Audit number two, the table test. Take audit number one, please. I dare you. Ask the people who live with you what your religion feels like from the inside.

And ask honestly, if you can, that's the hard part. The hard part's to listen and not feel defensive. Does it make you softer or harder? Your religion. Does it make you safer or does it make you scary? Does it open the door of your home or does it guard it with chains? Because guys, the mission was never about winning arguments for God. The mission, all the way back to Abraham, was bearing the name of God to the world. Carrying his reputation so the watching world, starting with the people at your own table, could look at your life and learn what Yahweh is actually like. Your house is like Of all the nations out there that the incense is going to rise, your house is the first.

That's where it starts. Guys, we made it to the last page of the prophets. And the last voice goes out warning the most religious people in the room about the God that they've built. And pointing them back home. To hearts turning. Not at church. Not out there. No, at their own tables. In their own houses. Somewhere in a museum there are belt buckles in a glass case that say "Gott mit uns" on them and they're slowly turning green with age. The God two empires built sitting in the dark where he belongs. But the song that those young boys sang across barbed wire on that Christmas Eve, that is still being sung.

The real God is still breaking through. Still walking out into no man's land between people who were certain about each other. The empire knows how to schedule artillery. It's just never figured out what to do with a song it didn't commission. Every God we build can bless what we already planned. But he can't interrupt it. And the real one, the true one, is almost always interrupting everything in the best way. And so the question again, the last prophet in the Old Testament leaves us holding is just this. When he breaks through to your trench, will you choose to climb out? Or will you choose to fire a barrage to once again drown his voice out?

We'll end with that. So if you would please stand as we conclude with worship today. And I don't know where you're at today, but if you need prayer for anything, anything going on in your life, it can relate to the message or not, as we have a prayer team on either side of the stage, and these are prayer warriors. All you got to do is step out and walk up. And they will hold your hand and lead you before the Father and lift you up to them. And maybe you're sitting here today and maybe it's time for a re-dedication. Or maybe you've carried something around so long you've never felt how heavy it was until now.

For that, we have this altar. It's a stage, but it's meant to be symbolic of something greater. And it's meant to be used if you would like to step forward and come down and just kneel there and symbolically set that thing that you have chosen to carry around for so long right here to say, "God, you can have this now. That's what it's here for. Malachi had a stern message. And for 400 years for 400 years there was silence. While people still did not get it. Until one day there was a baby crying in a little feeding trough. And the incense started to ignite in the most unexpected places. Our calling is to never be comfortable as believers.

Never be comfortable anywhere in this world. Because we're still going home, right? So we're still traveling to adventurous and exotic places where sometimes it's scary. Sometimes it's frightening. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. But it's always for the mission of God. That's what we're called to do. So let's keep being uncomfortable. Because the real God loves it when you're uncomfortable. Because it means you're still moving and that's what you vowed to do if you took on the mission. Avinu Malkeinu, our Father and our King, Father we ask you in the name of Yeshua for the Holy Spirit that you yourself says is within us now.

The same one that raised Yeshua from the dead. That power, that discernment, that wisdom, that authority. Father, I ask that we would be bold enough to throw away the God that we've created and stand up out of that trench and walk forward into the hard place. Walk forward so that you would be represented because it's not about us anymore. That was the deal. We pick up the cross and we follow you. And we follow you where you're heading with your cross. That we would embody that mission. But we would embody it, they would feel like they had an encounter with you. Father, I ask that you would continue to protect us and guide us and remind us who you are and who we are with you.