November 23, 2025 Text: Malachi 3:13-18
Dear Friends in Christ,
This week kicks off the holiday season. From now until the end of 2025 it is a busy time of family gatherings. I heard about an article where 50% of people were already mapping out their communication topics for these get-togethers. What will people be avoiding? In this order are the top 5: politics, finances, personal appearance, job/dating, and religion. People even have their outs – a phone call they may or not be receiving or a trip to the bathroom. Why are things so difficult? Because with many of these topics we may say hard words that people don’t want to hear. We may make it personal. We may offend. So, talk about the turkey or ham or how nice the centerpiece is. But do not ask if they have found a boyfriend or girlfriend yet.
In our text for this last Sunday in the church year, Malachi the prophet writes of people who have spoken against God. These are His children, the ones whom He created, and they come to the family gathering with harsh things to say. But He also remembers in our text His children that fear Him and heard Him and paid attention to Him. These also gather together because we are His.
“THE LORD WILL REMEMBER YOU”
The text starts out, “Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test, and they escape.’” (v. 13-15)
How would you like that said at the dinner table? Harsh, critical. They are calling the Lord out. These children of Jacob continued to resist the Lord’s Word. They found no benefit in serving the Lord. They found no gain in following God’s Law. They think the arrogant and evildoers are getting away with their behavior.
Do you ever hear anything similar from your friends or family? Who doesn’t like to stir the pot by wondering why their serving God is doing no good? Who can light a spark and get into an argument about God’s Word and what it says? Who wonders aloud where God is with all the evil that seems to be occurring? Can anyone really expect to cajole God into doing what we want? Can we put Him to the test or bend His will?
Prayerfully we realize that we can do none of that. What happens when the Lord remembers? He says we are engraved on His hand. God keeps His promises. Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament. It is God’s last word to Israel before the fulfillment of his greatest promise. The next time God comes around it is going to be in person – in the person of the promised baby in Bethlehem. It is going to be four hundred more years of waiting, but He is going to come. What God’s Word says, happens.
The Lord will remember you. “Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.” (v. 16) The Lord wasn’t pleased about the words He heard against Him, but He does respond positively to the words of the believers. They are remembered and written in the Book of Life.
The text goes on, “They shall be mine says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.” (v. 17). The irony here is that, while a man spares his son, in the case of this son, the Son of God, God did not spare him, did not have compassion on him, but sent him to the cross. He gave himself up to suffering and death. And Jesus could not save himself from the cross if he wanted to save us. But God did all of that to have compassion on us, to put our sins on Jesus, to make us His sons and daughters.
Turn from your questioning of God. Don’t needle that relative that might strike back, don’t poke the bear who might growl. Don’t test the faith if it is not an appropriate time to do so. Let the Holy Spirt lead you His treasured possession to when the time is right.
The Lord helps us to remember like the last verse says between the “righteous and the wicked,” “the one who serves God and one who does not serve him.” You go out from here as God’s treasure. You know Jesus is King and you have peace with Him. The Lord knows you and will remember you on the Last Day. He is returning you know. You have His table ready, don’t you?
Amen.