BIBLICAL MINISTRY

Introduction

-{Malachi 2}

-So, our daughter Kenzie is in the middle of her first semester of college way down at the University of Mobile. While there, she has visited different churches for their Sunday morning services to check them out and see if she finds one to get involved with, and we’re praying she does.

~Last Sunday after church she and I had an interesting text message exchange about the church she visited that day. She asked that if you’re a preacher you want to back up your sermon points with Scripture, right? And I’m like: that’s generally how it’s supposed to work. Well, the preacher where she was visiting was preaching from just one verse in Jonah, which in itself wouldn’t be a problem if his points were from Scripture. I explained there are different types of preaching: topical that looks at what the Bible says about a topic and expository that teaches from a passage, and either is fine if it is based on Scripture.

~But she was really concerned because even though the main idea came from that one verse in Jonah, the points about it he made were not backed up by Scripture. She knew something was off because the message did not come from Scripture and the message was not backed up by Scripture and Scripture was barely referenced, and it set off a red flag because if Scripture is the final authority, all sermons should be born from Scripture.

~So, my first thought was THAT’S MY GIRL! And my second thought was BIG PARENTING WIN—WE TAUGHT HER WELL! But I was so proud that she recognized that for a church ministry to really be a church ministry, it needs to be founded on the Bible.

-But, this story highlights the problems with much of today’s Christianity. Today’s Christianity is there to give self-help answers to life’s problems, when it’s the Bible that actually has the answers that people need. Today’s Christian ministry is weak because it doesn’t get its power from God through the foundation of Scripture. But our generation is not the first to experience this.

-We have been studying in the book of Malachi and we find that his generation ran into the same problem, and God warned them about this—for a ministry to please God it must follow His Word and ways. And the main point of what I want us to take away from today’s passage is that a healthy church needs biblical expectations for their ministry.

Malachi 2:1–9 NET 2nd ed.

1 “Now, you priests, this commandment is for you. 2 If you do not listen and take seriously the need to honor my name,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will send judgment on you and turn your blessings into curses—indeed, I have already done so because you are not taking it to heart. 3 I am about to discipline your children and will spread offal on your faces, the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it. 4 Then you will know that I sent this commandment to you so that my covenant may continue to be with Levi,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 5 “My covenant with him was designed to bring life and peace. I gave its statutes to him to fill him with awe, and he indeed revered me and stood in awe before me. 6 He taught what was true; sinful words were not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and integrity, and he turned many people away from sin. 7 For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge of sacred things, and people should seek instruction from him because he is the messenger of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 8 You, however, have turned from the way. You have caused many to violate the law; you have corrupted the covenant with Levi,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 9 “Therefore, I have caused you to be ignored and belittled before all people to the extent to which you are not following after me and are showing partiality in your instruction.”

-{pray}

-Malachi is writing at a time after the Jews returned to the land from exile. After God brought them back, you would think they’d have learned their lesson and been highly devoted to God, but it had devolved into nothing but spiritual apathy and indifference. They really didn’t care about serving God, worshipping God, or really anything having to do with God.

-This bled into their leadership, and the religious leaders were not ministering the way they ought. For the Jews, the priests were the leaders of ministry. Out of the tribes of Israel, Levi was chosen to serve God in the tabernacle and temple, and the lineage of Aaron was chosen specifically for the priesthood. In the early days, the Levites and the priests demonstrated a great zeal for God and His holiness. But then in the days of Malachi, they gave into the same indifference as the rest of the people.

-The problem is that for the people to get out of that indifference, they needed leadership to blaze the trail. Now, the church doesn’t have priests because we believe in the priesthood of the believer—every believer is a priest in the biblical sense. But there are ministerial leaders in churches, and for the church to be healthy there is an expectation for it to be biblical. But why this is important for you (who might not be ministerial leaders) is that you need to crave such a ministry, encourage such a ministry, pray for such a ministry, and help the leadership to maintain such a ministry. Let’s look at what this ministry should look like:

1) The desire of biblical ministry

-And what we mean by this is not our own desire for such a ministry, but what it is that a biblical ministry desires to accomplish—what is the goal of a truly biblical ministry. In this passage, God tells the leaders that they will be judged if they don’t take seriously what ought to be the desire of the ministry. And God says in v. 2 that this is a desire to honor God’s name. You would think that this would be blatantly obvious, but there are organizations out there that call themselves churches that make ministry about anything but honoring the name of God and honoring the name of Christ.

-There is this idea that church is about self-enrichment, self-satisfaction, self-fulfillment. You hear the common theme of self. I come to a church to see how I can advance my own life and my own agenda and make life more comfortable for me. That’s what happened in Malachi’s day with a people who were indifferent to God. But God says in v. 2 that you need to listen and take seriously the need to honor HIS name.

-But here’s the thing that people might not understand—honoring God is actually your greatest good. If you want to do what is best for yourself, if you really want to minister to yourself, then you center your life on honoring God. That will be the focus, that will be a ministry’s greatest desire. According to v. 5 of our passage, this is the covenant that brings life and peace. You want life and peace, then it’s not about you, it’s about honoring God. Jesus Himself said:

Matthew 16:25 NET 2nd ed.

25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.

-If you really want life and peace and satisfaction and fulfillment and enrichment, then you will not make it about you, you will make it about God, you will make it about Christ. And if a ministry is fulfilling it’s mission, then that is where the focus is going to be. But many ministries make it about honoring self. Listen to this snip-it from a sermon called YES IS IN YOUR FUTURE:

When God laid out the plan for your life, He lined up the right people, the right breaks, the right open doors. He already has your yeses planned out. Yes to that promotion. Yes to that clean bill of health. Yes, you will get married. Yes, you are accepted into that college. You may have been told no a thousand times, but God has the final say, and He says yes is coming your way. Yes, you will accomplish your dreams. Yes, you will overcome that addiction. Yes, your children will fulfil their destiny. Yeses are in your future.

-Now, from a worldly perspective, who wouldn’t want that. However, what is that all about—it’s about honoring self. It’s about God being the genie we need for our dreams. Where is making room for God’s plan and God’s will for His glory? He might want you to go to that college, but God might also have a better plan for you in mind. It’s not about saying yes to you and your dreams. God says in v. 2 IT YOU DO NOT LISTEN AND TAKE SERIOUSLY THE NEED TO HONOR MY NAME I WILL SEND JUDGMENT ON YOU AND TURN YOUR BLESSING INTO CURSES. A ministry’s desire is to honor God, because that is what is going to lead people to life and peace. This is what we should want and expect. And next, our passage talks about:

2) The design of biblical ministry

-God speaks to the leaders about what the ministry to His people ought to entail. If a ministry is going to honor God then it is designed to have these two parts:

a) Personal Devotion

-First, the leadership should be personally devoted to their profession of faith so that they can lead God’s people to do the same. The leaders, with the people, should not say one thing and do another, but live what they believe. In the church, there is no room for DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO. And God through Malachi says that this was the expectation.

-In v. 5, in talking about the covenant that God made with the Levitical priests, God says those early priests revered God and stood in awe of God. They feared God, they respected God, and it showed. There’s things you can fake for a while, but a true reverence of God and holding God in complete awe is going to show through the life and countenance of someone. How important it is for those leading ministry to have that countenance. I mean, if a preacher is preaching about joy but his face looks like he sucked on a very sour lemon, you’re not going to really listen to him about joy. But then that falls on God’s people to follow the example. If we try to tell someone that Jesus is the best thing there is in the world, but then the world sees us living for the world rather than Christ, are we really devoted to Him—are we revering and standing in awe of Him?

-And God through Malachi says the early priests lived this way, but the priests in Malachi’s day were not. In v. 6 God says that the early priests WALKED WITH GOD IN PEACE AND INTEGRITY. They didn’t merely say that they feared God and were awestruck with God, they lived it—even when other people weren’t around. There’s the true measure—do you live like you are personally devoted to God even when others don’t see or there’s no chance of you getting caught. Unfortunately, we have heard about too many ministers who get caught in adultery or some other sin. I personally knew a guy from my seminary days that was a dynamic speaker, and he was invited to all these different things, and it ended up that he had a hidden camera that he used to record women in bathrooms. And if the leaders are going to be like that, what do we expect of the people?

-That is why a biblical ministry will only thrive when there is personal devotion. But the other part of the design of biblical ministry is:

b) Truthful Instruction

-God again was commending the priests of old and what they did right in honoring God, and He mentions in v. 6 that they taught what was true. They didn’t teach what the people wanted to hear, they taught what the people needed to hear—the Word of God. The ministry of the Word to the people gave the people God’s revelation of Himself, His holiness, and His standard, and they did not shy away from speaking God’s truth no matter how it may have been received.

-You see, it is better to offend someone with the truth than to let them live comfortably in a lie. It isn’t loving to let people destroy themselves in rebellion to God so that you can make them feel better about themselves. If they get offended, then let them get offended by the truth being shared in love, but at least you’re telling them the truth. The ministry that gives life and peace is the ministry of truth. Jesus prayed to the Father:

John 17:17 NET 2nd ed.

17 Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth.

-Life and peace is found in the truth of the Word, not a lie of positive affirmation. A ministry that blesses sin or corruption is not doing anyone any favors because it is not telling the truth. The truth is that:

Romans 6:23 ESV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Sin, no matter what terms you might try to use to soften the blow, leads to death. Sin is not something to be celebrated. We tell the truth about sin. We tell the truth about humanity’s plight. And we tell the truth that God provided the only remedy through Jesus Christ. And we tell the truth that He is the only way. This is an important and dire responsibility. Because, listen, God has called the church and the leaders of the church to this task of truth telling and if we fail then we are held responsible for not fulfilling our calling. Listen to this longer passage in Ezekiel 33... Ezekiel 33:1-7

Ezekiel 33:1–7 NET 2nd ed.

1 The Lord’s message came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people, and say to them, ‘Suppose I bring a sword against the land, and the people of the land take one man from their borders and make him their watchman. 3 He sees the sword coming against the land, blows the trumpet, and warns the people, 4 but there is one who hears the sound of the trumpet yet does not heed the warning. Then the sword comes and sweeps him away. He will be responsible for his own death. 5 He heard the sound of the trumpet but did not heed the warning, so he is responsible for himself. If he had heeded the warning, he would have saved his life. 6 But suppose the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people. Then the sword comes and takes one of their lives. He is swept away for his iniquity, but I will hold the watchman accountable for that person’s death.’ 7 “As for you, son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you must warn them on my behalf.

-We are the watchmen. If we tell the truth and people do not receive it, then it falls on their head. But if we do not tell the truth, then it falls on us. All those false teachers out there not giving the truth of Scripture are going to be held accountable because they did not share God’s truth. Sure, they gave 5 principles on how to be happier in this or that situation, but they did not share God’s truth. God is honored when we share the truth. And this is important, because at the end of v. 6 it says that telling the truth of God’s Word turns people away from their sin. Pop psychology is going to pacify people in their sin, telling the truth of Scripture is going to turn people away from their sin.

-Which is better to hear from a doctor? He runs all these tests and he says everything is fine and keep doing what you’re doing, although the tests showed something serious and if you don’t make some changes you’re going to die—but at least the doctor made you feel better about yourself. Or is it better to hear the truth from the doctor that if you don’t stop doing this or start doing this you’re going to die. I may not like that last message, but it is the truth, and it is the truth that leads to life and peace.

-And so, God says in v. 7 that the leadership should preserve knowledge of sacred things and the people should seek instruction from him because he is the messenger of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. The church leadership has a great responsibility to instruct people in the ways of truth, in the sacred things of the Lord, and that is only found in the Bible, God’s Word, the Holy Scripture. And if there is any church leader that does not take this to heart, then they need to find a different career because they are playing with fire because God is going to judge. And very quickly this leads to...

3) The destruction of biblical ministry

-What happens when the ministry of the church does not honor God? What happens when the people don’t lead and live in personal devotion or give truthful instruction? We find the answer in vv. 8-9. One consequence is that the leadership themselves turn from the ways of the Lord. This is what God accuses the priests of in Malachi’s day at the beginning of v. 8: YOU HAVE TURNED FROM THE WAY. You, O leader, have stopped following God. And then what is the consequence when that man of God turns from God’s way? It continues to say in v. 8 YOU HAVE CAUSED MANY TO VIOLATE THE LAW AND CORRUPTED THE COVENANT.

-When the church leadership decides not to center the ministry on God’s honor and God’s Word, he goes astray and then leads the people astray. I think of the slow fade of Andy Stanley. It started with questioning the sufficiency of Scripture. Then it led to the belief that you need to disconnect the Old Testament from the New Testament. And now he is hosting an LGBTQ conference that includes speakers who are in gay marriages. There was a whole lot more in between all that, but you get the gist. And God is shouting YOU HAVE TURNED FROM THE WAY. YOU HAVE CAUSED MANY TO VIOLATE THE LAW. AND YOU HAVE CORRUPTED THE COVENANT.

-Preachers like this might have their day now, but God says in v. 9 that eventually He will CAUSE THEM TO BE IGNORED AND BELITTLED BEFORE ALL PEOPLE TO THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING AFTER ME. There is going to be a day of judgment where they are brought before God and the angels and the assembly of the righteous and every time they did not share the truth, every time they did not act the watchman, will be brought out into the light. Biblical ministry is destroyed when God is not honored, our lives are not devoted to God, and the truth is not given for the instruction of the people.

Conclusion

-And that means, Harvest Baptist Church, that we need to be watchful about our own ministries. We need to work together to make this a God-honoring place that allows Scripture to point us to our amazing God—being instructed on who He is, what He wants, and what He did in Jesus Christ. We need to be a people centered on truth, not trying to keep up with the culture that questions God and His Word like the serpent of old, asking DID GOD REALLY SAY…?

-Harvest Baptist Church, come to the altar and pray that we would be a place of true biblical ministry, that God is honored, and His truth always told.

-Maybe you are looking for a church that has true biblical ministry...

-But maybe you do not know God because you do not know Christ...