After estabslising what believers should do in response to God’s grace with their lives (Romans 12:1) and their minds (Romans 12:2), Paul progresses the way that this response to grace should affect the way we treat each other in the body of Christ (Romans 12:3-8). Here, Paul points out that we are one body with different gifts and that these gifts are gifts of grace (Greek: Charismata (gifts), Charis (grace)) for the building up of the body. The way we serve each other will indicate the way in which we have learned to give ourselves as living sacrifices and just how much our minds have been transformed by grace.

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• The third in this series
• What we’ve learned…
• Outward expression of inner transformation
• See how Paul points us to the character traits of …

The parable of the tea bag
The healthy church….
You are the body of Christ

In Romans 12:2, Paul continues the theme of how we ought to live in response to the wonder of God’s grace given to His people. After telling us that nothing less than offering ourselves as ‘living sacrifices’ to God will do in verse 1, he then rounds out the picture by telling us the ‘how in verse 2 and indeed, in the rest of the chapter. Verse 2 tells us that a right response to God in this way includes our minds. Why? Because right thinking and right theology ultimately leads to right living, just as bad thinking and bad theology ultimately reveals itself and ends up in wrong living!

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• The second in this series
• What we’ve learned…
• A high bar & cheap grace
• See what Paul says about responding to grace…

Can you spot the difference?
What’s the Lord’s end goal in this?

It’s kind of unusual to start a series on the book of Romans at chapter 12, three-quarters of the way through the book! But in an attempt to cover the more ‘practical’ aspects of the Christian life, and to follow on from the series on Malachi, Romans 12 is a great place to start – especially Romans 12:1, where Paul gives some clear instructions about how to respond to the wonderful grace of God in the gospel – clear instructions but hard to do when you think about what they involve!

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• The first in this series
• Chapters 1-11? …
• ‘Therefore’ – theological & practical
• See what Paul says about responding to grace…

That s…. word!
One man who took this seriously…
What will you offer to the Lord?

The final words of Malachi’s book, found in Malachi 3:13-4:6 are also the final words of the Old Testament. While the Old Testament begins with God’s creative work in Genesis 1:1, it ends with God’s promise of a destructive work in Malachi 4:6. This is helpful, because it reminds us that while God’s people in the time of Malachi were unfaithful to their covenant reponsibilities, God himself was not unfaithful to His people. And, even though they spoke against Him, He did not pour out His judgement upon them, but sent them a messenger whose ministry was to restore broken relationships. In all this ‘God was reconciling the world to Himself’ and preparing the way for the One who would come to be its Saviour.

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• The last in this series
• The story so far…
• ‘Whitewashed tombs’
• See how the Lord revealed that there were…

Authentic faith…
The invitation of Jesus (who came after Malachi) …

When our thinking about God is wrong, so too everything else will be wrong. In Malachi 2:17-3:15, the people of Judah’s thinking about God was way off. They thought that He had changed to the extent that He no longer cared about punishing sin or evil, and that He actually approved of sin and evil. They couldn’t have been more wrong! Thankfully, their wrong ‘theology’ was quickly corrected and God made very clear where He and they stood, promising to come to them, to judge them, but before that, to send them the Messiah and the one who announced His arrival.

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• The 5th in this series
• The story so far…
• ‘God isn’t blessing us as we would like!’
• See how the Lord through Malachi revealed …

Those pesky sparrows!
The voice in the desert…
He gave Himself for you…now do that for Him!

it has been noted that ‘the fish rots from the head down’. Given that the Lord God had already shown through the prophet Malachi that the priests (the leaders of the religious aspect of God’s people) were corrupt and spiritually poor, then it is little surprise that the people also began to disregard the word of God and its importance in their lives. And one of the ways they did this was in the area of marriage. In Malachi 2:10-16, we find that the men were marrying women who worshipped other gods and (presumably) divorcing their own wives in order to do this. Neither of these was acceptable to God, and this slack view of marriage only revealed just how low their view of God really was.

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• The 4th in this series
• Familiarity breeds contempt
• A difficult text, but clear!
• See how the Lord accused the people of …

Not a time for joking!
A reflection of God’s covenant with His people…

You may have heard the expression, ‘the fish rots from the head down’. As with that proverbial fish, so with God’s people. In Malachi 2:1-9, we find that the cause of the spiritual decay that had set in among the people of Judah, was found in the priests of the day who were unfaithful and corrupt. They themselves were led astray and so by their teaching were also leading the people astray and to despise the word of God, just as they were doing. It’s a terrible picture, but something that wasn’t happening just ‘back then’. As goes the leadership of today’s church, so also goes the church.

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• What we’ve seen so far in Malachi
• The foundation established
• Decline from the ‘top down’
• See how the Lord accused the priests of …

‘Going down like a lead balloon’
Generational decay
We need the Perfect Priest!

We have a saying in Australia that goes, ‘things are crook in Tallarook’. Maybe they aren’t always, Tallarook is quite a pretty place. But things were certainly ‘crook’ in Judah when Malachi declared God’s word in Malachi 1:6-14. The people had settled back into Jerusalem after the exile, but the worship had been turned upside down. Were they bored with worship or with God or both? Either way, they weren’t giving their best to God and He was not pleased. Worship can be all wrong when are hearts are far from Him.

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• Those opening verses of Malachi
• Two truths in tension
• Bored with God?
• See how the text tells us how there was…

Guess who’s coming to dinner?
Out with hypocrisy…!

The book of Malachi is the last of the books of the Old Testament, written about 450 years before the appearing of John the Baptist. In it, Lord addressed His people through the prophet Malachi, calling them to wake up to themselves. Their spiritual condition was poor. And so in Malachi 1:1-5, it’s surprising to see the note with which the book begins. The Lord’s love for His people! It’s this backdrop that makes later messages from God through Malachi shine out in importance, calling His people today to ‘put matters right’ with our God who has chosen us to be His own.

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• Malachi
• 450 years before John
• The sad state of the people…’how have you loved us?’
• See how the text calls us to remember …

The correct diagnosis
The Lord’s love for you…

Borrowing from the work of John Mackay, guest preacher and theological student, Daniel Hitchcock explored some significant references in the Bible concerning stars, the magi mentioned in Matthew 2:1-15, and how these point to God as Creator and Saviour.

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