Malachi
Messengers - The Minor Prophets • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Notes
Transcript
Introduction
In church, at least in North America, we often talk about how you need to give it all to Jesus, you need to surrender all. We even have a well known hymn called [sing the line] “I surrender all.”
And if I just pause here, some of you are getting that beautiful hymn in your head and, if I’m lucky, it will be there for the rest of today. Muwahaha.
But what do we mean when we say that? It’s easy for us to think that God is calling us to make this grand gesture of devotion.
Like back in the 90’s when the goth kids became Christians at camp, then at youth group the next week, they would burn all their cd’s. Remember those days? Everything was a grand gesture, often precipitated by a strong emotional event.
[Grab piggy bank]
When we think of “giving our all to Jesus” it’s usually like this:
[Shows and puts a hundred dollar bill in the piggy bank]
But the reality is that we give our all to Jesus one coin at a time:
[drop a coin] - coffee with a friend who is lonely
[drop a coin] - colour with kids during Kidzone
[drop a coin] - sing on the worship team
[drop a coin] - invite someone to a church event
[drop a coin] - give to the work of the church
[drop a coin] - forgive that person who hurt you [drop a few extra coins] Alright, that one might take a few extra.
But you get the point. To love God well, to surrender all to him, isn’t about one grand gesture. It’s about being faithful in all the small things in your life.
Because when we add up all the small things, we see that, over the course of our lives, it’s added up to something pretty impactful.
It’s like the power of compound interest in banking (young people - if you can not only get this principle but actually do it, you can help out your future selves in ways you can’t imagine yet)
If you deposit $30,000 as a grand gesture in a bank account that gets 4% interest rate, and never withdraw from it, over the course of 30 years, you would have $99,905. That’s pretty good.
But if you deposit $200 and then continue to deposit $200 a month faithfully for the same 30 years at the same interest rate, you would have $139, 472.
Being faithful over the long haul brings greater results than a grand gesture at the beginning. It’s true with banking and it’s true in our spiritual lives as well. God calls us to be faithful.
Paul the apostle talks about what character traits God produces in us through the Holy Spirit.
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
I often ask people, which one do they struggle with the most. So let’s do that now: look at the list, and you tell me which one you struggle with the most, or which one you had more of in you life: How many of you answered “patience?” That’s what most people answer.
Now, I need patience more than anyone. You would think that my struggles with raising a special needs daughter like Hannah would make me more patient, but usually I find that the struggles simply reveal my impatience.
But when I examine that list, I realize that more than patience, I need God to produce more faithfulness in me. I am faithful to God in many areas. But I am also unfaithful in some and as God works in me through the Holy Spirit, my heart’s desire is to grow and change so that I can be faithful in all the areas of my life.
Today, we conclude our series Messengers: The Minor Prophets with the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi.
And the big problem that Malachi addresses is Israel’s unfaithfulness.
Biblical Teaching
Although no date is mentioned, scholars believe that Malachi is set after the exile and after the rebuilding of the second temple. But the people had become disillusioned about God and life in this time. Life wasn’t what they thought it was going to be and so the nation fell into a spiritual apathy and they were unfaithful to God.
One way they were unfaithful to God was
They doubted God’s love for them
They doubted God’s love for them
Malachi 1:2 (NLT)
2 “I have always loved you,” says the Lord. But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?”
Quite often, when I’m talking to people who are really struggling with something in life, this idea comes up. Many of us in the church today either overtly or subconsciously believe that if God loves us, life will be relatively easy. Difficult circumstances must be because God doesn’t love us, right?
That’s what the Israelites thought in Malachi’s time as well. Life hadn’t turned out the way they thought it would and so disillusionment had seeped into their hearts.
God’s response was to show them that his love was revealed when he chose them over the Edomites, who although they were related, had become bitter enemies to Israel. The Edomites had assisted the Babylonians in the sacking of Jerusalem and then moved into the area during the exile and were a thorn in the side of the returning Israelites. But promises them, based on his loving covenant with Israel, that Edom will never be restored, and it never was.
Sometimes, when life isn’t going the way we think it should be, we despair and doubt God’s love for us. But God continues to reveal his love to us. In the book of Romans, Paul says,
8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
No matter what circumstances you are going through, the cross is proof that God loves you. But the cross is only the beginning.
The scriptures say
31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
God continues to pour out his love for you in a variety of beautiful ways. But when we are struggling, our vision narrows down to just our problems and we fail to see all those ways, both grand and small that God reveals his love for us. Which is why we need to be a people of faith, not of sight. When life seems to overwhelm us to the point where we doubt God’s love, we need to exercise our faith and reject that narrative and open our eyes and hearts to God’s abundant love.
One of the ways we can practice faithfulness to God is to actively receive and respond to his love for us.
The Israelites were unfaithful to God because they doubted his love. Another way they were unfaithful to God was
They despised his name
They despised his name
6 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says to the priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master. If I am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve? You have shown contempt for my name! “But you ask, ‘How have we ever shown contempt for your name?’
In the ancient near east, a name was far more than the sound you make to get someone’s attention. A name had deep meaning and often revealed something about a person’s character, destiny, or circumstance. For example, in Exodus 3:14, God reveals his name to Moses as “I am” or Yahweh. This name expresses that God is real, that he is the eternal unchanging one. It carries idea of God’s sovereignty and omnipotence, as well as his role as Creator. All this is summed up in the name Yahweh.
So, to despise a name, in that culture, was to dishonour the entirety of the person. And that’s what the Israelites were doing to God - they were disrespecting him by offering bad sacrifices.
In the OT law, there were rules about the quality of the animal sacrifices that were to be made to God. They were to give their best, not their worst leftovers. They were to give healthy, good animals, not blind, lame, diseased or disfigured ones. But that’s what they were doing. They were going through the religious motions, but their sacrifices were garbage.
My wife has told me of stories of some of her aunts and uncles who were missionaries in Africa decades ago. Missionaries back then didn’t earn a lot of money - all their support came from people back home. So church people would often send them extra things to help out. Sounds nice right? People sacrificing their comforts to support people working for the Lord around the world. Except, what they sent reminds me of the sacrifices the Israelites were making here in Malachi. People actually sent used tea bags, so the missionaries could get another cup of tea out of it. That’s an unworthy sacrifice that dishonours the name of who you are giving it to.
This should cause us to reflect on our own worship. Are we sacrificing and giving the best of ourselves to God, or does God get our left overs? If we have truly given our lives to him, we need to ensure that in everything - our time, our money, our resources - we set God as first above all else.
A third way the Israelites were unfaithful to God was
They defiled the covenant
They defiled the covenant
10 Are we not all children of the same Father? Are we not all created by the same God? Then why do we betray each other, violating the covenant of our ancestors?
The OT has 7 major covenants. A covenant is a binding agreement where each party agrees to do something. It’s kind of an if/then scenario. For example, in the covenant God made with Moses, the Israelites agree to live according to the law and decrees of God and if they do that, God agrees to bless them and protect them. If the Israelites don’t live up the terms of the agreement, God promises to punish and discipline them.
That’s what caused the exile. Israel had broken the covenant by failing to live out the law God gave to Moses and turned away to worship idols.
The book of Malachi speaks of Israel breaking the various covenants. One of them was the covenant God made with the priests. In chapter 2, verses 5-7, God says how the priests were supposed to act, but then in verse 8 he says,
8 But you priests have left God’s paths. Your instructions have caused many to stumble into sin. You have corrupted the covenant I made with the Levites,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
The priests were defiling the covenant of God in three ways: first by receiving and doing the rites for the unworthy sacrifices that the people were offering. Second, by not challenging the practice of marrying partners who worship idols which was a violation of God’s command in Deuteronomy 7 and third, by not challenging the practice of easy divorce. The book of Malachi declares that God hates divorce and the reason for that is because of the hurt and pain that the divorce causes.
Culturally, to divorce a woman in that time was a cruel act. It would force her to live out her days either begging or prostituting herself for there was no other way for her to sustain herself. The people were abandoning the covenant they had entered when they got married and the priests, who were supposed to be the representatives of God to the Israelites -were being permissive of this sin and idolatry.
Now, you might be tempted to think , “Well pastor, you’re like a priest. This sounds like a you problem.” Except the NT calls all believers priests
9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
In the OT, the priests were a separate class of people. In the NT, we are all priests - we all represent God to those around us and we all intercede for those around us to God.
That’s why it’s important we honour God through the new covenant we are under - the covenant of love, expressed through Jesus. A covenant that says because God loves you - to the degree that his own Son, Jesus, took your place in death for your sins so that you can be fully alive in Christ - you now get to worship and relate to God in faith and love.
The author of Hebrews says,
15 That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.
The Israelite priests were unfaithful to the covenant they made with God. They didn’t uphold their end and so God brings a judgment against the.
Praise be to our God though, because under the new covenant in Jesus, all our sin has been dealt with through Jesus’ death and resurrection. He took the punishment for our sins so we could be free to worship God.
The third way the Israelites were unfaithful was they defiled the covenant. The fourth way the Israelites were unfaithful to God was
They disobeyed God’s word
They disobeyed God’s word
7 Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?’
God commands us to live a certain way. That way involves justice, equity, caring for the poor and the immigrant, honesty and devotion to Him. To help make it clear for us, he gave us all these commands in a series of writings that we compiled into the Bible.
The Israelites in Malachi’s time had the writings of the law, the histories of their kings and many of their prophets. But they still didn’t live out what God said for them to do.
They still cheated people out of their wages, oppressed widows and orphans and failed to live lives that honoured God.
So God calls them to repent - to change their behaviours and he promises that if they return to him, He will return to them. That’s one of the beautiful things about our God. No matter how much we have sinned or how many mistakes we have made, He always invites us to come back home to him, because he loves us.
But the Israelites were like, how can we come back to you - we never left you!
And God’s response is that they left him by not obeying his word and the example he gave was regarding their tithes and offerings.
A tithe is a 10% offering of your income to God. It is done as a way to provide for those who serve God full-time and see the kingdom of God grow. In the OT, tithing wasn’t really optional. It was part of the Mosaic covenant - a command from God that they agreed to.
But the Israelites were withholding their tithes. The ground wasn’t producing what they thought it should and they were afraid there wasn’t enough for them, so they weren’t giving.
So God says for them to test him - to trust him with the first of their income - and if they did, he would make the ground more abundant for them.
The Israelites were unfaithful to God in that they disobeyed God’s word. But God calls us to be faithful to living out God’s word today and he has given us not only the scriptures, but also the Holy Spirit, to help us live them out.
21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls. 22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
To be faithful to God in the word is to read it, meditate on it, and live it out. May God find us faithful to his commands and decrees.
Application
What should you do about this teaching in the book of Malachi? I believe that God is calling us to develop and strengthen our faithfulness to him. So how can we develop our faithfulness?
1) Pre-plan to succeed
1) Pre-plan to succeed
Set up pre-authorized giving
Set porn blockers on your devices
Utilize your calendar and notifications
Use the tools on our devices to limit distractions
2) Pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit
2) Pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
If faithfulness is a fruit of having the Holy Spirit, it is imperative that we pray for the Holy Spirit to fill us.
As you pray, ask: What does faithfulness look like in this moment?
3) Pull back the shroud of secrecy
3) Pull back the shroud of secrecy
God has given to each of us a great gift. That gift is the church. When you gave your life to Jesus you became family and in this family, when one of us is struggling and hurting, we are all struggling and hurting. So we want to see you succeed.
One way you can develop your faithfulness is to let people into the areas where you struggle so that they can help you. They can offer support, accountability, and tools to help you succeed.
Now, to state the obvious, you have to choose carefully who you let in. Not everyone who attends a church is trustworthy. But there ARE trustworthy people in the body of Christ who eagerly want to walk with you and help you.
When we bring our struggles into the light, it reduces the power they have over us. That’s why James, the brother of Jesus and the leader of the church in Jerusalem, wrote,
16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
and why Paul the Apostle wrote
2 Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.
When you have a team walking with you in your struggles and temptations, the chances of success increase dramatically. If you want to grow in your faithfulness consider pulling back the shroud of secrecy and inviting a spiritual support squad into your life to help you.
Conclusion
Why people struggle with reading the Minor Prophets / OT as a whole
And the minor prophets do teach us that God takes sin seriously - that he values justice, equity, and honesty - and that he is the sovereign ruler of all the cosmos - everyone and everything is subject to him
But they also tell us a beautiful narrative - a story of a faithful God who is constantly trying to bring his people back into right relationship with him, no matter how unfaithful they have been culminating in the new, messianic kingdom where Israel, and all the nations will find salvation, peace and justice.
In fact, the last section of the book of Malachi speaks to this great salvation. Malachi says,
5 “Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. 6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.”
Because the original Elijah was hundreds of years before Malachi, this is obviously referring to a new Elijah. We know him as John the Baptist and he prepares the way for the messiah who brings salvation, Jesus our Christ.
Despite our unfaithfulness to God, he is still faithful to us. Like the great prophet Rick Astley says, “He’s never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.” Or as the author of Lamentations says,
22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
That faithfulness was ultimately proven through the death and resurrection of Jesus as he took all our sins, all our unfaithfulness, upon himself and crucified it with his body so that we can be resurrected to new life with him. How great is his faithfulness to us weary sinners.
Our God is faithful to us because he loves us. So out of our love for him, let’s add some more quarters of faithfulness [DROP A FEW QUARTERS] in our lives.
Let’s pray.
