Household Worship Guide on Purifying and Refining and God's Messenger from Malachi
This week we will consider Purifying and Refining and God's Messenger from Malachi. Sometimes you just need a good scrubbing
You adults have probably felt that at some point. You kids have probably needed it from time to time. Though kids sometimes fight being washed, we adults generally know when we need it and are happy to get clean. Harder when it is our spiritual life that needs purifying and refining. Here is the household worship guide for Thursday--and links to the rest of the week.
Listen up, little ones
Especially for the littles in your household.
Listen for the word Lord.
Reading
Malachi 3:1-12—I Will Come in Judgment
Keys for kids
Also for the littles. Young households might choose, after Keys for Kids, to go directly to praise and prayer.
- God will not let his people remain in their sin.
- Instead, he cleanses them.
- God’s cleansing us can be painful, but it is worth it.
Questions
(some read the ?s before notes, then ask them after)
- Against whom did the Jews expect God’s judgment to be?
- What are the two images of painful cleansing given here?
- How should we respond to God’s cleansing?
Notes
(See Saturday for authors. )
Smith comments that the Jews expected Messiah to come to judge the heathen. Malachi warned the skeptics that they would be the first to be judged. Yet this warning of judgment is not without grace. Rather it is a warning of a grace that will be painful yet purifying. God will not let His people remain in their sin.
Malachi uses two images here of painful cleansing. The purifying will be a refiner’s fire—burning away all impurities of His people. Secondly, the purifying will be like a laundryman’s cleansing soap. Just as a child often dreads being scrubbed clean by a parent, so Malachi’s readers would know this cleansing could be painful. This cleansing lye soup, applied vigorously by the Lord, might well hurt. But the resulting cleanness would be worth it. The Levites, representing the people, would once again present offerings in righteousness because their hearts and lives would have been purified.
Not only does God promise His purifying work of His people, He also promises punishment for the wicked. Again and again, God comes in judgment against the wicked. Most severe is His judgment against the wicked among those named as His people. How much better that we accept His painful cleansing and repent than suffer His just punishment against those who will not repent. When we do, we know His unchanging mercy.
Swedish Method questions
See the Sunday notes for meaning of the symbols.
Praise
Psalm 51a, 119u
Prayer
- Ask God to make you clean in your daily life.
- Pray for the preparation for preaching God’s Word this Lord's Day.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.
At Springs Reformed Church we distribute a weekly guide running from the Lord's Day to Saturday with Monday-Wednesday reviewing the sermons that were preached the Lord's Day at the start of the week and Thursday-Saturday previewing the sermons that will be preached the coming Lord's Day.
However, for the posts here I am linking to the guide from Thursday to Wednesday so that all are aimed at the Lord's Day as the peak of the 7-day rhythm as seen in the image above. The Lord's Day post includes links to the sermons.
Thursday Malachi 3:1-12—I Will Come in Judgment
Friday Malachi 3:13 – 18—A Book of Remembrance Was Written
Saturday Malachi 3:1—I Will Send My Messenger
Lord’s Day
Monday John 13:1-11, 15:1-8—Cleansed by the Lord
Tuesday James 2:14-17—Faith Without Works is Dead
Wednesday John 1:1-14—The Word from God
If you find it useful to use these in your household/family worship, consider asking your pastor to speak to me about him developing something similar in your congregation.
Worship Connected is a guide prepared by me, Dr. Ed Blackwood, pastor of the Springs Reformed Church (RPCNA), to focus family worship around the sermons preached each Lord’s Day. For more information about how and why I developed this guide (and encourage other pastors to consider doing something similar) see here.
