Malachi 2:10-16
What Does It Mean to Be the People of God?

I. What’s It Mean to be God’s People?
1. Nations teach us what it means to be of their nation. Americans know that to be American means to keep Thanksgiving. Chinese learn what it means to be Chinese.
2. In 1779 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Mrs. Deane married John Fisk. She was a Christian. He wasn’t.
3. Mrs. Deane’s pastor objected to them being married. When she married him, she was excommunicated.
4. What it meant to be one of God’s people is that they were not supposed to marry non-God’s people.
5. Mrs. Fisk believed that “marriage is purely a transaction of a civil kind.”
6. In Mrs. Fisk’s attitude her faith was disconnected from her marriage. It’s just a “personal relationship.”
II. The Trap of Compromised Covenants (2:10-12)
A. Covenants
1. God’s people are in covenant. Jesus sacrificed Himself for us and so made a new covenant.
2. God accuses them of being faithless. They’ve put a lot of attention to their religion. They cry.
3. Then they would date and marry like anyone else. Or maybe handle money like anyone else.
4. If we’re emotional about God, does He really care about our love life or money? Yes, He does care.
5. Notice those strong words: “faithlessness”; “abomination”, “profaning.” What’s the heinous sin?
6. Many have “married the daughter of a foreign god.” They’ve married those of another religion.
7. God considers the intentional entering into a marriage with a non-believer to be a lack of loyalty.
B. Relationships
1. To call yourself one of God’s people and then live just like the world is to commit treason.
2. To be unfaithful is to be faithless, to not believe that the Lord is sufficient, that He is enough.
3. By entering into such relationships we show that our relationship with Jesus is a low priority to us.
4. The Lord describes this kind of inter-marriage as an “abomination”, that means it is “detestable.”
5. It is profaning the sanctuary. Profaning means making common something that is special to God.
C. Exceptions that Prove the Rule
1. We are not talking about when a spouse is converted after they were married and the other is not.
2. The believer is supposed to stay faithfully married, even if the other spouse remains unconverted.
3. God may use the witness of the believing spouse to save the other one (1 Cor. 7).
4. We are not talking about when one partner appeared to be a Christian before marriage but wasn’t.
5. When a Christian marries a non-Christian the relationship slowly erodes her commitment to God.
6. Some people thought they were Christians until they became involved with a non-Christian.
7. Immature Christians become involved with a nominal Christian (a Christian in name only).
8. Christians can unintentionally get involved with someone who is not a believer.
9. To intentionally walk into a relationship with an unbeliever is faithlessness.
10. John Piper: “I will never fall in love with a person who does not love Jesus.”
11. Nancy Leigh DeMoss: “I purpose never to become involved in a relationship with a guy who is not a true follower of Jesus Christ.” (in Lies Young Women Believe, p. 90.)
III. The Tragedy of Cancelled Covenants (2:13-16)
A. Covenant-Keepers Like God
1. God’s people are covenant-keepers. Guard against the tragedy of cancelled covenants.
2. God takes our marriage commitments very seriously. He holds us to our wedding vows.
3. In marriage He makes us one with our spouse. He is seeking “godly offspring” (2:15).
4. Teach children the gospel, their need for salvation, bring them to church.
5. The man who divorces just he doesn’t feel in love, has committed adultery and done violence.
B. Guard Yourself
1. Guard yourselves. Be diligent, like a guard on duty on a wall, like a sentinel expecting an attack.
2. Lookout for ingratitude, bitterness, unforgiveness; for too much expectation, for other relationships.
3. Be on guard against pornography and anything that could make you a covenant-breaker.
4. Guard yourself to stay faithful even when it’s not so fun any more; watch your fantasies.
5. God is angry with compartmentalized religion. Outside that box, we think we can be like the world.
6. That kind of disintegrated religion creates self-indulgent, covenant breakers.
7. To be one of God’s people means everything about all your life: sex, money, our words, TV, etc.
IV. Invitation: To be one of God’s people means to have a faith that makes you faithful, to be full of faith in every compartment of your life. Our first need is to see whether we are really in the faith. “Examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. . . . Don’t you know that Christ is in you?” (2 Corinthians 13:5.) If He is in You, He will not be confined to your religion. He will be the Lord of all your life. But if your faith can be confined, if it doesn’t fill your dating and your married life, your money, your work, your family, all your life, then you ought to examine yourself whether you fail the test.