{"id":2113,"date":"2024-12-09T13:21:54","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T21:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/?p=2113"},"modified":"2024-12-09T13:21:54","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T21:21:54","slug":"god-gives-return-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/?p=2113","title":{"rendered":"God Gives Return Gifts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Malachi 3:1-7b)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s good business for retailers to have a good return policy, since anywhere from 15% to one-third of Christmas gifts are returned. However, since those returns also amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in purchases needing to be refunded in, one might think retailers would make returns difficult or at least very inconvenient for shoppers. But one reason it pays for retailers to have a good return policy is that shoppers are more likely to buy from them in the first place. In other words, when purchasing gifts for others, if a retailer doesn\u2019t have an easy or favorable return policy, shoppers are less likely to buy from them and will take their business elsewhere. Another reason to have a favorable return policy is that those returning gifts to the store from which it was purchased are more likely to spend their refund – and perhaps a little more – in that same store. So it bodes well for retailers to have good return policies. But shops and stores aren\u2019t the only ones focused on handling returns; so was the prophet Malachi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malachi’s whole message is all about returns. While he isn\u2019t the most well-known prophet in the Old Testament, Malachi does have the distinction of being the last one recorded. After the book of Malachi, the Lord silenced his notifications for about 400 years until Jesus\u2019 birth, after which point the Holy Spirit picks up pen again through the New Testament Evangelists and writers and resumes recording the truths of his Word for us again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malachi served long after the era of patriarchs and kings in Israel. He was a messenger to the Israelites who had returned from their exile in Babylon. But, since things weren\u2019t as magical as the Israelites expected them to be once back home, they took issue with God. The message recorded for us in Malachi is a back and forth between God and the Israelites, with their complaints directed at God, and God\u2019s response, which essentially amounted to, \u201cYou are no different from your ancestors; you <\/em>are the problem, not me. Return to me and I will return to you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He isn\u2019t talking about returning gifts after Christmas, though. He\u2019s got more important returns on his mind, and wants to make sure that God\u2019s people do, too. So what are the returns Malachi mentions? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord\u2019s messenger will return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord himself will return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord\u2019s people are called to return. A real Christmas is all about the returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord’s Messenger Returns<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first return will be of the Lord\u2019s messenger. \u201cI will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me\u201d (Malachi 3:1a).<\/em><\/strong> About whom was Malachi speaking? He is none other than John the Baptist. But wait. Why do we speak of John the Baptist\u2019s arrival on the scene as a \u201creturn\u201d? Because Malachi pictures him metaphorically as Elijah, one of God\u2019s well-known and respected past prophets who lived and served in the past during the time of Israel\u2019s monarchy. In one of the final verses of the whole Old Testament, picturing the arrival of John the Baptist, Malachi writes, \u201cSee, I will send the prophet Elijah\u00a0to you before that great and dreadful day of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0comes\u201d (Malachi 4:5).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John the Baptist, the second Elijah, returned for a very specific purpose: to prepare the way. In the Christian Church year, the Second Sunday in Advent always focuses our attention on the messenger who came to prepare the way for someone greater. That was John\u2019s role, he was well aware of it, and he carried it out faithfully. Another prophet, Isaiah, foreshadowed John’s work by illustrating the type of preparatory work that would need to take place in hearts to be ready for the Savior (cf. Isaiah 40:3-5<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord Returns<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Through John the Baptist, God prepared his people for another return: his own.\u201cThen suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,\u201d says the\u00a0Lord\u00a0Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?\u201d (Malachi 3:1b-2b).\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 This \u201creturn,\u201d so to speak, from Malachi\u2019s perspective, looked ahead to two fulfillments: Jesus\u2019 first coming and his return on the Last Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While we spend a significant part of our lives in anticipation of our Christmas celebration each year, we are celebrating an event that already took place 2000+ years ago. God already came into our world in the flesh when Jesus was born. Malachi, along with so many other messengers in the Old Testament, looked ahead to that day, but we look back on it. For them it was an anticipation of a future event to come. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that regard, we can relate to the anticipation of a future event to come when we speak of Jesus\u2019 return on the Last Day. Just as Malachi\u2019s audience in his day understood his words to speak of a coming event, so we see his words also referring to a coming day, when on that Last Day he appears again for judgment, and the question is asked, \u201cWho can stand?\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jesus returns on the Last Day, it will be as a judge, and he is right to ask \u201cWho can stand,\u201d based on the evidence stacked against the Israelites. Malachi exposes them. \u201c\u2018So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,\u2019 says the\u00a0Lord Almighty. ‘I the\u00a0Lord\u00a0do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.\u00a0Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them\u2019\u201d (Malachi 3:5, 7a).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, who can stand before the Lord with all that evidence stacked against them? Here is the good news. That day of Jesus\u2019 second and final return, Judgment Day, even with all the sin stacked against mankind, will not be be a day of dread for those who by faith receive the work Jesus did when he came the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malachi described that work, too, using pictures to illustrate why the Lord would have to return to his people and the work he would come to do in Jesus Christ. \u201cFor he will be like a refiner\u2019s fire or a launderer\u2019s soap.\u00a0He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the\u00a0Lord\u00a0will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the\u00a0Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years\u201d (Malachi 3:2c-4).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus came first to refine and purify, to wash away sins and make us presentable before God. Now we can stand! Jesus came to bring the righteousness we needed and to remove the sins we didn’t. Since we have been made holy by faith in Jesus, we have nothing to fear when thinking about standing before the Lord at his Second Return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That day will be radically different from his first coming, where joy was initially confined to a local hillside among a group of shepherds on a hillside and an angel chorus. The whole world will be the audience when Jesus returns, and the outcome for all people at that return will be entirely dependent upon what each individual believes about Jesus’ first coming at Christmas, and his perfect life, death, and resurrection that follows.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But until that day, here we stand, sandwiched in the middle. In the past, the Lord returned to his people when Jesus was born into this world on Christmas. In the future, Jesus will return on the Last Day. How do we spend our days in the meantime? The same way. By returning. Returning back to God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Returns<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Why is that such a priority? Because Satan and sin do not take days off. They do not stop doing everything possible to turn you away from God permanently. We already saw the evidence Malachi presented in verse five, but when we read through a list like this, it might be natural for us to presume it\u2019s referring to someone else – those wayward Israelites. But we must know better, right? It\u2019s not an exhaustive list – there could have been many more sins included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Malachi was alive today, his warning to us would read a bit differently. \u201cSo I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against, drunkards, greedy shopaholics, sex\/pornography addicts, lovers of violence, foul & filthy language, worshippers of sports, celebrity idolators, etc.\u201d He would name different sins, but the sin doesn\u2019t matter – it all does the same damage, trying to gain the upper hand and lead us off the path of righteousness along the path of selfishness that leads to permanent separation from God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Malachi\u2019s message then, along with the other OT prophets, along with John the Baptist, along with any Jesus-loving, Bible-treasuring believer today, is the same: return. For example, listen to just one other Old Testament prophet,\u00a0 Hosea. \u201cReturn,\u00a0Israel, to the\u00a0Lord\u00a0your God.\u00a0Your sins\u00a0have been your downfall! Take words with you\u00a0and return to the\u00a0Lord. Say to him:\u00a0\u201cForgive\u00a0all our sins and receive us graciously,\u00a0that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria cannot save us;\u00a0we will not mount warhorses. We will never again say \u2018Our gods\u2019 to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless\u00a0find compassion.\u201d\u00a0Who is wise?\u00a0Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0are right; the righteous walk\u00a0in them,\u00a0but the rebellious stumble in them\u201d (Hosea 14:1-3,9).<\/em><\/strong> Return to God. As often as it takes, return. Get back on track and don\u2019t step too freely and frequently on that other path so that it becomes comfortable. Return to grace, return to goodness, return to God.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s really just another way of saying \u201crepent.\u201d We often think of repentance as being a call to get our act together and stop sinning so that we can somehow make ourselves presentable before God, and that he’ll will be happy with us as a result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if we know the gospel, then we know that God\u2019s happiness with us isn\u2019t based on our repentance or lack thereof; it\u2019s based entirely on what Jesus already did for us. So we don\u2019t return to God in hopes of winning his affections; we return to God because we already have God\u2019s affection. And don\u2019t let sin and Satan fool you – they cannot ever offer you anything better than what you already have with God because of Jesus Christ.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God says to you through Malachi, \u201cReturn to me, and I will return to you\u201d (v.7b).<\/em><\/strong> Is there a better gift than that permanent promise? God\u2019s returns are the best gifts. He returns his messengers to us as often as we need to hear their message. He himself will return on the Last Day to make all things new. And in the meantime he give us the gift of returning to him through repentance, and attaches to it his promise to never turn away from us when we do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to your Christmas gifts this year, hang on the ones you like. Return the ones you don\u2019t. It doesn\u2019t really matter. But what does matter is that you don\u2019t miss out on the best return gift of coming back to God again and again. That\u2019s his gift to you, and it\u2019s the key to A Real Christmas.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Malachi 3:1-7b) It\u2019s good business for retailers to have a good return policy, since anywhere from 15% to one-third of Christmas gifts are returned. However, since those returns also amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in purchases needing to be refunded in, one might think retailers would make returns difficult or at least very… Continue reading God Gives Return Gifts<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[577],"tags":[4,582,5,109,67,561,36,108],"class_list":["post-2113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-real-christmas-series","tag-christmas","tag-gift","tag-jesus","tag-preaching","tag-repentance","tag-return","tag-sermon","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p842FN-y5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2113"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2118,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions\/2118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}