Why Serve God? - Malachi 3:13-18
If you’re anything like me, it’s easy to become cynical. Cynicism, at its core, is “an attitude of deep distrust of others' motives, often stemming from the belief that human behavior is fundamentally driven by selfishness, greed, or self-interest.” Cynicism often encourages us to wonder, "Why am I doing this?" Even as Christians, we sometimes find ourselves cynical over the Christian life, "Is serving God really worth it?" You may look around you and think, "The people who are living for the world are more successful than me and it seems like they're having more fun while they’re doing it!”
You see people getting wealthy through immoral means which have provided them a luxurious lifestyle. All the while you’re trying to honor the Lord, fight against sin, serve His church, raise your family in the faith, and walk in obedience while struggling to make ends meet. Obedience is costly. Faithfulness is exhausting.
If we're honest, there are moments when we look around and wonder whether the sacrifices are worth it. We may never say it out loud, but the thought can creep into our hearts: "What profit is there in serving God?"
As it turns out, that is not a uniquely modern struggle. It was the very struggle facing the people in Malachi's day. They looked at the prosperity of the wicked and the difficulties of the righteous and concluded that serving God was a waste of time! Their hearts had grown cynical, and their cynicism was beginning to shape the way they viewed God, worship, and obedience.
And it is to those cynical and discouraged people that the Lord speaks in Malachi 3:13–18.
But what we learn from this passage is that cynicism is overcome by remembering that God will ultimately vindicate His people. The Christian life is never lived in vain! And so we learn several things from this passage: first, we must guard our hearts against cynicism (vv. 13-15), second, we must strengthen our hearts through the gathered assembly (v. 16), and lastly, we must fix our hearts on God’s final verdict (vv. 17-18).
Guard Your Heart Against Cynicism (vv. 13–15)
You have to remember the structure of Malachi's prophecy. The book is built around a series of disputation speeches—a kind of back-and-forth dialogue between the Lord and His people. Typically, the Lord makes a charge or declaration, the people respond with skepticism or a question, and then the Lord answers them and exposes what is really going on in their hearts.
The pattern appears over and over again throughout the book. God says, "I have loved you," and the people respond, "How have you loved us?" God accuses the priests of despising His name, and they ask, "How have we despised your name?" God says they have robbed Him, and they reply, "How have we robbed you?" In each case, the people challenge God's assessment of them, revealing just how spiritually blind they have become.
That same pattern is present here in verse 13. The Lord says that the people’s “...words have been hard against me…” And then the people respond with, “How have we spoken against you?”
The Lord accuses the exiles of speaking harshly and arrogantly against Him, but like so many times before in Malachi, they are either unwilling or unable to see their sin. They demand evidence. They want God to explain His accusation.
And so the Lord does. He exposes the content of their complaints. They had been saying, "It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of keeping His charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?" In other words, they had concluded that serving God was pointless. Obedience seemed unprofitable. Repentance seemed useless. Worship seemed like a waste of time.
They had tried all these things and their lives had not improved one little bit! And so, they had concluded, “It is vain to serve God.”
After all, the wicked nations around them were thriving and not once did they ever stop and try to obey, or repent, or worship the Lord. They were pagans worshiping false gods! They didn’t care about the Lord and their lives were far superior to the lives of the Jewish exiles.
Who hasn’t been there? Who hasn’t looked at what someone is doing on Instagram, or Youtube, or your own neighbor, who isn’t a Christian, maybe they’re even hostile to the faith, but somehow, their lives appear to be better than yours. They’ve got the money you wish you had. They’re taking the exotic trips. They have a nice house and cars.
And then you look at your own life and less than ideal circumstances you begin to ask yourself, “why has God done this to me?” This is exactly what was going on among the Jewish people living in Judah and Jerusalem during the time of Malachi’s ministry. They were looking at their circumstances in life and used that as the lens through which they evaluated God’s goodness, God’s holiness, and God’s worthiness.
They thought, “my life isn’t going the way that I want it to, therefore God is unfair.”
“I’ve consistently read my Bible, I’ve been consistent in prayer, I take my family to church every Sunday and God, this is how you’re going to treat me?”
When this sort of thinking begins to take root in your life, that’s where cynicism sets in. Why am I trying to pursue righteousness and holiness? Why am I worshiping God when immoral people are living better than me?
Psalm 73 basically says the exact same thing! Asaph, the writer of Psalm 73 said, “...my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. 3 For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
That’s effectively what the people were saying in Malachi’s day. Look at verse 15: “And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’”
At the root of all of this is a small, but insidious little lie which is “God owes me.” If I’ve been doing all the things that “I’m supposed to do,” I deserve to get everything that I want. God owes it to me. He’s indebted to me.
An entitlement mentality had swept over the people of God, and it had completely inverted their view of themselves and God. They no longer saw themselves as sinners. They no longer understood God’s unmerited covenant with them as a gracious act. Instead, they saw themselves as deserving customers who didn’t receive the services they expected.
Interestingly enough, this is what the prosperity gospel teaches. Worship and obedience are tools at your disposal to get what you want out of God. Which is exactly what was going on among these Jewish exiles. Worship and obedience had become a means of getting what they wanted out of God. And when those means didn’t get them their desired result, well, “it is vain to serve God.”
Cynicism often sets in when you and I don’t get what we want. And frankly, it makes us start to focus on ourselves. We begin to think of what we don’t have, what everyone else does have, and how unfair it all is, and why would God ever allow something like this to happen!?
Cynicism, selfishness, and entitlement, will rob your heart of gratitude, thankfulness, joy, and peace. You begin to count your disappointments as opposed to God’s blessing on your life. Rather than remembering God’s faithfulness, you begin to fixate on what you believe has been withheld from you. It doesn’t take long for God’s daily mercies to feel insufficient.
The result is a heart that complains more than it praises, questions more than it trusts, and dwells on God's perceived failures rather than His countless evidences of grace. Cynicism doesn't merely distort your circumstances—it distorts your view of God.
You have to guard your heart from cynicism.
Strengthen Your Heart Through the Gathered Assembly (v. 16)
But notice there is another group of exiles who are very different from the cynical group. Malachi tells us in verse 16 that, “...those who feared the Lord spoke with one another." Despite all the frustrations, despite all the negativity among the exiles, there was still a remnant of genuine believers. There was still a group who “feared the Lord.” And these individuals who feared the Lord did not stay isolated from one another. Rather, they “spoke with one another.”
They gathered together in order to encourage one another and it was more than just reminding each other that, “this too shall pass.” Malachi stressed that those who feared the Lord gathered together, and there’s really only one way for them to do it—to remember, reflect, and point one another to the promises of God.
Because the best way to encourage someone is not always to hand them a step-by-step process for overcoming whatever they are struggling with. Perhaps there is a time for practical advice, but there are also moments in life when formulas and strategies simply are not enough. There have been times when we have looked at the world around us, or at a painful situation in our own lives, and seen no obvious way out.
The death of a close family member or friend, the loss of a job, a painful divorce, a frightening diagnosis, or the heartbreak of watching someone you love wander from the Lord—there are some situations where no amount of sugarcoating will make them taste sweet. No matter how you look at them, they are bitter pills to swallow.
And the way you find encouragement—and the way you encourage those around you who are walking through those dark valleys—is by pointing them to what the Lord has said. You remind them that God is sovereign and that He works all things together for the good of those who love Him. You remind them that Christ has promised, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." You remind them that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You remind them that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Which is exactly what these returned exiles were doing! Notice the rest of verse 16: “The Lord paid attention and heard them…” The Lord hadn’t cast them off! The Lord wasn’t ignorant to what they were experiencing. And of course, those who feared the Lord knew that! In fact, they even went so far as to put together, “a book of remembrance.”
That is, a book recounting everything that they had been through, because they knew that their only hope was to cast it before God. And of course, the Lord wasn’t ignorant of what they had been through. Nor would he cast them off.
They were reminding one another that the Lord saw and knew what they had experienced. God's people have always needed to be reminded of God's promises because God's promises are what sustain weary and discouraged hearts.
Malachi does not explicitly describe a worship service, but he does show us a faithful remnant gathering together to speak of the Lord. That is exactly the kind of thing God's public worship is designed to cultivate.
And when you think about it, isn’t that exactly what we continue to do to this day? We gather every Lord’s day to remind ourselves of who God is and what He has done. How He is gracious, merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. How He comforts His people and speaks tenderly to them. That all the promises of God find their Yes in Christ.
That’s where you and I derive our strength! You and I must point each other to the Lord for encouragement.
You see, church isn’t supposed to be an hour of weekly mandatory suffering. It should be a place of encouragement. It should be a place to remind you that the God of the universe is still on His throne and is still in control no matter what you’re going through.
This is actually the point that the writer of the book of Hebrews makes in chapter 10. He famously writes that we should, “...not neglect to meet together as is the habit of some…” I’m sure many of you are familiar with that passage, but what we often forget is what is said right after that. The whole verse says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
The writer of Hebrews sees a lack of participation in corporate worship as missing out on encouragement. And this is exactly the sort of thing Malachi is talking about here!
Fix Your Heart on God's Final Verdict (vv. 17–18)
Have you ever noticed that many of the most faithful believers are often those that have such a positive, joyful approach to life? And rarely have those people had an easy life. In fact, more often than not, their joy has been forged in the furnace of hardship, disappointment, and loss.
They have walked through seasons where the answers did not come quickly, where prayers seemed unanswered, and where circumstances did not make sense. Yet instead of becoming bitter, they have learned to anchor their hope in something deeper than their circumstances.
Which is exactly what’s being described here in this passage. There were those who had become cynical, bitter, frustrated, and angry, and then there was a remnant who never stopped trusting in the Lord.
And the key difference between the two groups is what we read in verses 17-18. Look at those verses with me.
“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. 18 Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”
Those who feared the Lord never lost sight of God’s triumphal final verdict. That they were His treasured possession. That He would spare them as a man who spares His son. One day, the Lord will clearly display, “distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”
Those who feared the Lord understood that what they were experiencing was temporary. Even if it was the defining feature of their entire lives—it wouldn’t last forever. God was going to set it all straight. He was going to make things right.
Isn’t there tremendous comfort in that? People are going to get away with all kinds of wickedness in this world. People are going to get away with taking advantage of you. Mistreating you. Doing you wrong.
But the Lord promises to fix it in the end. The distinction between the righteous and the wicked will be made clear. That’s the difference between those who trusted in the Lord and those who allowed their hearts to be eaten up with cynicism, resentment, and anger. They trusted what the Lord had said—that He was going to fix it.
Cynical complainers, like these exiles Malachi is talking about in this passage, had forgotten this about God. Because they couldn’t see through their disappointments, their unmet expectations, and the fact that their lives were not gone according to their plan. Before long, they pushed their personal frustrations onto God, which inevitably distorted their view of Him. God hadn’t met their timing, their expectations, their desires, which meant He must be unjust and unfair.
Isn’t it amazing how people can experience the exact same events and draw such wildly different conclusions? One group experiences political oppression and it makes them resentful, bitter, and cynical. And another group experiences it too but it drives them to trust the Lord more deeply.
I wonder which group you would fall into? Do you let your heart grow bitter? Do you blame God when things don’t go your way? Or do you look to Him as your only hope?
You know as I was reflecting on this passage I couldn’t help but think about Psalm 121. “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Those were more than just words for those who feared the Lord. They didn’t spend all their time wallowing in self-pity. They lifted their eyes up. They trusted that the Lord was their help.
Oftentimes it’s said that, “present conditions are the best predictors of future outcomes.” Humanly speaking, that’s a generally true statement. But spiritually speaking, nothing could be further from the truth! The Lord tells us that our future is going to look nothing like our current circumstances!
But it may be part of his sovereign plan for you to walk through the fiery furnace in order to purify you. In order to make you the most righteous and holy version of yourself for His glory.
It’s in the midst of the fire that you and I must trust Him at His word. That you are His, treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.
The returned exiles were a lot like Mr. By-Ends from John Bunyan’s classic work, Pilgrim’s Progress. Mr. By-Ends and his companions loved the idea of Christianity but only if it was beneficial. They wanted a comfortable, successful, praiseworthy version of Christianity. Mr. By-Ends didn’t believe that following Christ should cost him anything.
And yet, the exact opposite is true. Being a faithful follower of Jesus Christ will cost you. I think that most of you have heard that at some point. But I think the deeper question that this passage drives home is, how will you handle walking through the valley?
Will you become cynical and embittered? Will you focus on yourself? Will you think about how unfair you’ve been treated? Or will you look to the Lord for hope?
Will you trust Him at His Word? Will you trust that you are His treasured possession and that He will spare you as a man spares his son?
Those are not merely theoretical questions. They are the questions that every believer eventually has to answer. There will be moments when obedience seems to bring more hardship than comfort. There will be seasons when the wicked appear to prosper while those who seek to honor God struggle. There will be times when your prayers seem to go unanswered and your faithfulness seems unnoticed.
The world may overlook quiet acts of obedience, but God does not. The sacrifices you make for Christ are not forgotten.
All of this comes with a beautiful promise: “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.”
That language is deeply personal. God has claimed a people for Himself and their identity is not rooted in their success, their comfort, or the approval of others. Their identity is rooted in the fact that they belong to Him.
And that changes the way we walk through the valley. We endure suffering differently because we know whose we are. We persevere through trials because we know that our Father has not abandoned us. Even when we cannot see what He is doing, we can trust that He is working for our good and for His glory.
The Christian life is not a promise that the valley will be short or easy. It is the promise that God will be with us in the valley and that the valley is not the end of the story. A day is coming when the Lord will make a clear distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve Him and those who do not. On that day, every act of faithfulness will be vindicated.
So when the cost of following Christ feels heavy, do not let your heart drift toward bitterness. Do not measure God's goodness by your present circumstances. Instead, remember His promises. Remember that He sees. Remember that He hears. Remember that you are His treasured possession.
And trust that the God who remembers His people will never fail to keep His Word. Amen. Let’s pray together.
