Godly Relationships

  • Jason Smith
  • Mar 7, 2010
  • Series: When God is Gone: A Study of the Book of Malachi

Over the past three weeks we have been looking to the book of Malachi to see the signs and symptoms of a people who had abandoned God, yet still believed themselves to be faithful to His will and His ways. What we continue to see in these verses, is the outright shock that they have to the accusations that are being leveled against them by God Himself speaking through the prophet. Three weeks ago, we discovered that the root problem that plagued the Israelites of Malachi’s day was that they had forgotten that they were God’s chosen people. Their awareness of their unique standing with God had faded and as a result they we no longer fulfilling God’s purpose to be a light to the nations as His people. Then Devin brought our attention that one of the ramifications of their spiritual bankruptcy was their half-hearted worship of God. They had despised the fact that God had given them His very best, yet they were serving seconds to a holy god in return, holding back the best for themselves. Then last week, we saw that their spiritual bankruptcy traced its way back to a compromising leadership who were more committed to their own comfort than for God’s glory. They had corrupted the covenant that God had given to Levi by forsaking the ministry that God had given to them to serve Him by leading the people through true instruction and godly living. This failure caused many to stumble in their relationship with God and with others. We don’t have to wait long for God to give us a description of this stumbling, because He makes it clear Malachi 2:10-16.

Malachi 2:10-16 lays out for us two areas where the people of Israel were stumbling in their relationships. First, in verses 11-12 Malachi points out their stumbling by marriage to unbelievers. Many of the men were marrying women who were not believers in the true God. As we will see, this is a serious stumbling in the eyes of God. Second, in verses 13-16 Malachi deals with the issue of divorce. This stumbling is found to be an affront to God and violence toward one’s spouse. Through all of these broken relationships there is a common thread that betrayal of God’s covenant leads to chaos in our relationships. As we prepare to dig into that truth, I want to say that with limited time we will not be able to cover every aspect of these relational pitfalls, but what we will do is to make as plain as we can the will of God which He makes clear in these seven verses. No matter where you are in this room, there is much to be learned from this passage because we all have been called into a covenant relationship with God and to live it out in relationship with others. My hope is that we will avoid the sin of the Israelites in Malachi’s day, which is so prevalent in our day, by holding fast to our relationship with God and allowing Him to revolutionize our relationships with others.