Praise & Glory, Wisdom & Thanks & Honour, Power & Strength to God

As a kid, I did not like being scolded around company. It’s bad enough to have my faults pointed out 1:1 w/ my dad. It’s worse to be corrected before others. It’s awkward for the guests too.

Yet, you and I listened as God’s people in Jerusalem are disciplined by God. The leaders – priests – get disciplined as Malachi brings a message from the Lord. Priests are supposed to know better. Priests are teachers who demonstrate what holiness and reverence for the Lord looks like.

Ever since God brought his people back from exile in the East, the priests taught the people how to live as God’s holy people. Priests demonstrated how as neighbours beside the rebuilt temple of God.

After ~100 years back in the land, it’s not going well. The reverence the people had for the Lord was beginning to wilt, even among the priests and Levites. It shows up in their offerings and sacrifices.

The priests have a handbook for offerings: the OT book of Leviticus. This is the place in the OT where people trying to read through the Bible get bogged down. Genesis and Exodus have lots of action; stories of God and his people. Leviticus is different.

Leviticus is repetitive and hard to relate to. This is the book where God describes the sacrifices for the nation or king, family or individuals, rich or poor in various situations. The refrain: every animal sacrifice must be “without defect.”

26X in Leviticus: “w/o defect”

+ 19X in Numbers: “w/o defect”

It’s impossible to miss. There’s no excuse for offering animals that are blind, lame, diseased, or, as some translations say, “stolen.” Such offerings are clearly unacceptable to God.

People shouldn’t bring animals w/ defects. Priests shouldn’t accept animals w/ defects. Why? B/c the Lord is holy and deserves the honour and respect of your very best offerings.

Malachi rebukes the priests and people for their disrespect. You can’t step into the temple and disrespect God!

Children are instructed to honour their father and mother.

Slaves/servants face penalties for disrespecting master.

You would never offer the governor a diseased animal!

Why would it be different for God?

Behind the instructions in Leviticus, are 10 Commandments. They begin with instructions about relationship w/ the Lord:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Exodus 20:2–7 (NIV)

At the heart of Malachi’s message, is the failure of the priests and the people of Jerusalem to show appropriate reverence, awe, and love for the Lord. They didn’t respect the holiness of God – not his name, his temple, or his altar.

While Malachi’s message was for people who lived long ago and far away, it holds a warning for us. How are you doing in honouring God? Does your reverence and love for God show in your service and offerings to the Lord?

God’s jealousy was a bit of a mystery to me as a kid. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be jealous of other people who had awesome toys or more fashionable clothes than me. Why do the 10 Commandments describe God as a jealous God?

One definition of “jealous” is “fiercely protective or vigilant of one’s rights or possessions”. As Creator and Redeemer, the Lord has a right to our respect and praise. God is protective of his good name. Malachi reveals God’s intentions:

My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 1:11 (NIV)

This is not just among the people of Jerusalem and Judah. God points to a day when all nations will have reverence for the greatness of God’s name.

God made this possible in Jesus Christ. When the world and people were first created, they had proper honour and a good relationship w/ the Lord. But our first parents messed that up.

Instead of trusting the Lord and obeying his instructions, Adam & Eve rebelled; they mutinied. Their rebellion tainted all people. All people’s default mode is rebellion against God.

I struggle to honour God as #1 in my life 100% of the time. I struggle to give him my best each day. How about you?

It’s not something we can fix by trying harder. It takes a miracle of renewal and transformation.

Throughout history, people have been far from God and far from obedience. If you’re far from God during your life, that’s your eternal fate as well: far from God’s goodness and grace, far from the source of life. Theological term: “hell.”

But God takes no pleasure in smiting people or damning them to hell. He loves all nations; all the people of the world. So, God prepared a plan to rescue them from sin and death. The key to his plan is Jesus – God the Son and 100% human – to enter God’s creation and rescue the world.

Here's an amazing thing about Jesus. He is w/o defect. All the animals w/o defect offered to God in the OT point ahead to the perfection of Jesus Christ. Jesus perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father. He was perfectly obedient beyond what any person could do since Adam & Eve: loving God and neighbour perfectly

All through his life, Jesus created scandal b/c of his concern for the servant of a Roman centurion, for an outcast Samaritan woman, and a sick, 12-year-old girl who died @ home. Jesus cared for all people. It’s that care, that love for the whole world, that brought Jesus to the cross, taking on the sin and guilt of all people and dying on behalf of his creation.

In his resurrection 3 days later, Jesus guarantees life. Our enemies – sin and death – have been defeated. It’s the scandal of the gospel that all people around the world can be forgiven their sins and transformed into people after God’s own heart by Jesus’ sacrifice.

That is one of things that is celebrated in the NT letter to Chr. in Philippi – far from Jerusalem – where people believed the gospel of Jesus included them. After the apostle Paul outlines the sacrifice of Jesus, he celebrates in Phil. 2:

Therefore God exalted [Jesus] to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9–11 (NIV)

By faith in Jesus, we are part of that great community from all nations and languages and tribes who bring Praise & Glory, Wisdom & Thanks & Honour, Power & Strength to God: Father, Son, and HS.

We do that w/ songs and prayers. We do it by offering our work as a offering. Doing every task “as working for the Lord.”

But bringing honour to God also has implications for our gifts and offerings. We don’t bring animals to Crosspoint to be burnt offering to the Lord. Animal sacrifice is no longer needed after Jesus’ sacrifice. We offer God our best service and gifts to show that he is #1 in our lives. It’s an act of faith to give something of value to God. It shows that nothing is more valuable to us than the loving care of God Most High.

I’m going to talk about our donations and offerings. As a congregation, Crosspoint is very generous. You volunteer time. You give generously all loans for church renos are paid for. I receive a generous salary and our summer staff were paid well. Thank you for your generosity. Well done!

Yet I felt God calling me to preach on this because honouring God through gifts and offerings needs to be reinforced as one of the values at Crosspoint. There is no obligation to give to the Lord if you’re still unsure about God’s promises and salvation.

But if you are a believer, a disciple of Jesus, you’re invited and challenged to worship God with thank offerings and fellowship offerings. You’re invited to honour God by giving back to the Lord the first-fruits of all he has entrusted to you.

Here's what I mean. Sometimes we don’t put our giving to the Lord first on our priority list. It’s understandable, there’s lots of requirements on our time and money.

If we think of our resources like a pie that gets sliced up and divvied up, there’s only so many slices to go around. We spend time at work and money on housing. There are children, parents, education, transportation, food, clothing, utilities, recreation, and a rainy-day fund.

If we’re not careful, all our time, resources, and money will be used up at the end of the month leaving nothing to honour the Lord except crumbs. From God’s message through Malachi, we know that God is not honoured by leftovers and second-rate offerings.

We don’t want to disrespect the Lord by giving him crumbs.

Instead, you’re invited to show your faith in God, to worship the Lord, to give thanks to Jesus for his sacrifice and gifts to you, to demonstrate you trust the Lord will provide everything you need – even enough for you to be generous – by offering the first slice. Give the first-fruits to the Lord; the cream of the crop, the very best of all the Lord has entrusted to you of time, talents, and treasure.

It sounds risky to give God the first 5% or 10% each time you deposit a paycheque. Maybe it is. But it is a very tangible way to demonstrate your thanks and trust, your love, commitment, and dependence on God.

In my experience, and the accounts I’ve heard from people who committed to giving back to God the first portion of time and money, that the Lord has always supplied what they need.

Malachi brings this challenge from the Lord in ch.3:

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Malachi 3:10 (NIV)

Will you take the Lord up on it?