A Kingdom of Priests

Series: Give Me Thy Heart

Introduction: The nation of Israel was consecrated to God as a nation of priests. This was always God’s intent for them, as revealed in Exodus 19.5-6:

English Standard Version Chapter 19

5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’

We even see that in Ex. 24.3-8, where the people agree to God’s covenant and are sprinkled the blood of sacrifices, something only done to consecrate the tabernacle, the altar, and the priests! Israel as a whole, not just the tribe of Levi, was intended by God to be a kingdom of consecrated, obedient ambassadors of YHWH to the world. As priests they would come before Him in holy worship and spread the knowledge of YHWH to all peoples. Their service would be outward (i.e. to the world), as well as upward (before YHWH).

In Isaiah 61.6, following the famous passage in v.1-2 which is attributed to the time of the Messiah, we find again this concept of a nation of priests:

English Standard Version Chapter 61

6  but you shall be called the priests of the LORD;

they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;

you shall eat the wealth of the nations,

and in their glory you shall boast.

This idea of a priesthood of believers is brought to fruition in the kingdom of Christ, as we read about twice a moment ago in 1 Peter 2:4–9. Our service as Christians and as priests of YHWH is the same as it was for the nation of Israel: Upward service to God in sacrifice and worship, and Outward service to the world, as we spread the "fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere” (2 Cor. 2.14).

However, Israel failed to fulfill their calling as priests of YHWH, which is exemplified in the failure of the Levitical priesthood. While there are bright spots along the way, the story of their failure runs from Aaron’s golden calf (Ex. 32) through Nadab/Abihu’s strange fire (Lev. 10) through Eli and his wicked sons (1 Sam. 2) all the way to the end of the Old Testament, which is where I’d like you to follow me this morning, to the book of Malachi.

Malachi highlights two key aspects of the Levitical priesthood’s failure to live up both to their calling, and the calling of Israel as a whole. In so doing, Malachi shines the light of truth on our own failures as priests of God. Our failures as priests are not new: They are in keeping with the same sorts of spiritual heart issues that we’ve been thinking about the last couple of months. In January we discussed the importance of our hearts as we present ourselves before God in worship, and last month we discussed the hardening of our hearts by sin. Today I want to conclude our series by talking about what it means to be that “kingdom of priests” that YHWH intended for His people, and consider how we can “hold fast our confession” under the holy orders of our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ (Heb. 3.1).

Polluted Sacrifices (Mal. 1.6-14)

The Text: What was wrong with their sacrifices?

The problem wasn’t that they were worshipping the wrong God, or that they were lacking sacrifices, but a lack of quality, which was demanded in the Law. (Lev. 22.22-25)

The root of that problem was their heart, specifically hearts that had lost the sense of God’s awesomeness. Think of it: Even Gods’ Priests were no longer filled with fear and awe of Him!

“Some remaining instinct kept them from parting with Him; but they yielded a cold, wearisome, heartless service. Malachi points to the root of the evil, the ignorance, how awful God is. This is the root of so much irreverence in people’s theories, thoughts, conversations, systems, acts, of the present day also. They know neither God or themselves.” (Barnes, The Minor Prophets, Vol. 2)

The pollution in their heart resulted in the pollution of their offerings, in considering His service a weariness, and giving God what was “left over”.

As a result, God vowed to withhold His favor, ordered them to cease their “vain” (i.e. useless and disrespectful) worship, & pronounced curses on those who refuse to give God their best.

How do we offer “polluted” sacrifices today?

If our hearts are not filled with a sense of the greatness, the holiness, the fear of YHWH, then we offer Him what is left over, or we do so as a chore rather than an opportunity to honor Him.

But how do we do this? Here are some specifics:

Neglecting Time with God (Lack of Prayer and Worship) Many people fail to devote enough time (or any time, for that matter) for personal prayer, Bible study, and reflection. Our daily routines become busy, and we neglect our relationship with God by offering less than our best time, our best attention, and our best gratitude.

Partial Obedience to God’s Word When we follow only parts of God's commands that are convenient or easy to follow, while ignoring or rationalizing away those that are challenging, what are we offering except what is convenient? The sacrifice of devotion that is worthy of God involves complete obedience.

Unwillingness to Serve Others The Parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us that service to others involves great sacrifice (Lk. 10.30-37), yet many may shy away from serving those in need, either because of discomfort, apathy, or selfishness. We like to help people, so long as it doesn’t cost us much in time or resources. How is that any different than Israelites offering sick animals rather than healthy?

Prioritizing Material Wealth Over Spiritual Growth When we focus more on accumulating wealth, status, or possessions than on nurturing our relationship with God or furthering the cause of the Kingdom of Christ, we despise His table all over again. The pursuit of this world often replaces pursuit of spiritual disciplines like generosity, humility, and faithfulness.

Failure to Use Our Gifts and Talents for God’s Glory All of us have been given unique gifts and talents by God, but sometimes we are reluctant to use them in ways that honor Him. Whether it’s through not contributing to the church, avoiding opportunities to serve this congregation, or not using one's talents to further God’s kingdom, all of these constitute refusal to give God the best produce of the abilities He has given us!

The Solution: Make God Awesome Again.

Returning briefly to Malachi 1, did you notice how many times God emphasized the core solution to Israel’s apathetic attitude and correspondingly disgraceful service to Him?

“And if I am a master, where is My fear? says the LORD of Hosts” (1.6)

“For from the rising of the sun to its setting My Name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to My Name, and a pure offering. For My Name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of Hosts.” (1.11)

“For I am a great King, says the LORD of Hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.” (1.14b)

As Corey highlighted for us recently in his comments, we have to fix our “want to”, and that comes from fixing our understanding of who God is, and who we are.

We do well to remember the repeated emphasis in Proverbs, that “The FEAR of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1.7) “The FEAR of the LORD is hatred of evil.” (Prov. 8.13a) “The FEAR of the LORD is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.” (Prov. 14.26) “Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the FEAR of the LORD all the day.” (Prov. 23.17).

We also do well to remember those in scripture who encountered God, and their reaction to Him:

Israel heard God speak to them from Sinai, and in terror begged Moses “You speak to us, and will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” (Ex. 20.19)

Isaiah, by way of a vision, found himself in the presence of God in His temple, and His response was “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts!” (Isa. 6.5)

Job was rebuked for His calling for God to answer for His treatment of Job, and after asking Job “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” (40.2), Job responds “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer You? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, but I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.” (40.4-5)

Application: How will restoring our awe and fear of God affect the quality of our sacrifices?

We will Sacrifice and Schedule around God’s Time. What would happen to the quality of my sacrifice if I carved GOD’S TIME out of my schedule first, then divided up what was left for what we needed and wanted to do? I’m not saying we ought to pray 24-hours-a-day, or some other non-serious, sarcastic suggestion, but a good start would be devoting the time in my week for worship/study with the saints here FIRST, and then plan around that. Set aside time each morning/evening/both for prayer and reading FIRST, and then plan around that. Instead of finding time, we need to make time for God!

We will Commit to Complete Obedience: The sacrifice of devotion that is worthy of God involves complete obedience to His word. If I truly believe Him to be truly and completely good, and that everything He has instructed us to do is for our good and His glory, my obedience must reflect that trust. Especially when it’s hard, like when Paul asked the Corinthians to forgive their wayward brother in 2 Corinthians 2:6–9 “For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.”

We will Consider the Need, Not the Cost: True sacrifice always costs something. For example, Derek: Do we still need a teacher for one of the Bible classes? It’s going to cost someone time, effort, and commitment to fulfill that need. We could be like the priests in Malachi 1 and say “I really don’t want to give up XYZ to do this”, or we could say “There’s a need here that I could fulfill. I’ll pay the cost.” Our kids need all of us, all our experience and talent and devotion! The Good Samaritan left two days wages at the inn in Luke 10 and said “...whatever more you spend, i will repay you when I come back.” (Luke 10.35). It wasn’t about how much it would cost him: It was about how much the broken man needed to be well.

We will Seek the Kingdom First: This one is easy - Jesus literally said to do this: Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Are “Kingdom” things your first priority?

We will Give Our Best: All of us have been given unique gifts and talents by God. We have been told to offer ourselves as a “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12.1). Think of yourself as a sacrifice: What is the best, choicest part of yourself? What’s the thing you do best? How are you giving what’s best about yourself to God?

Profitable Instruction (Mal. 2.1-9)

The Text: What was wrong with their teaching?

As we read through this section, it is clear that God is NOT happy with these priests. I don’t know of anywhere else in scripture where God is so displeased and disgusted with His people that He describes the disgrace He will bring upon them as spreading dung on their faces (Mal. 2.3). The closest analog to this is Nahum 3.6, where God condemns wicked Nineveh and declares He will “throw filth” at them.

But what was their problem? Malachi 2:9 “and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.”

Partiality in their instruction is God’s key indictment in this section. Instead of fearing God, standing in awe of His name, providing “true instruction”, turning “many from iniquity”, guarding knowledge, and providing godly instruction to all, they have “caused many to stumble” by their instruction, failed to honor God as holy, and corrupted their covenant!

In Ezekiel 22:26 we see the product of their partial teaching: “Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.”

In short, what and how they taught the people was done based on how it would profit themselves!

How do we offer “partial” teaching today?

We discussed last week how partiality in treatment of people for personal profit. Partiality in teaching and speaking of God’s word follows this same track: Profit.

How do we fall into this same trap of teaching and instructing for profit?

We Choose Silence When Profitable. There are situations when we as Christians need to speak God’s word in response to situations in the world, whether they be members of our family, work associates, or connections online. So often we don’t choose to speak up, but instead we clam up and refuse to provide a much-needed “thus saith the LORD”. And we know good and well why we choose silence: We KNOW that God’s word won’t be recieved well, it will make us unpopular or cause others to deride us. We choose silence when it profits us, because silence is easier than giving a defense.

We Avoid Unpopular Doctrine When Profitable. This is similar to the last trap: It is a selective silence, a choosing of which parts of God’s word we will communicate and which parts we will avoid bringing up, based on who is listening and their life situations. All of a sudden God’s word on homosexuality is the LAST thing we’ll bring up around those who are homosexual, but we have no problem defending our need to attend worship services or respect the government’s authority to those people. I’m not saying we should “go on the attack” with people, but sharing the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20.27) requires exactly that: Wholeness. Picking and choosing what we will teach is the exact definition of partiality: Partial. In Part. Some, but not all. WE dishonor God’s word and His good name when we deem parts of His word unworthy of communication when it profits us personally.

We Change Unpalatable Doctrines When Profitable. What so often happens in religious circles, and increasingly in the church, is that doctrines that are just flatly unpopular get changed, adjusted, or “studied again”, wherein we suddenly come to a “new understanding” of the scriptures. Priests of YHWH were expected to “guard knowledge” (Mal. 2.7), and to be messengers, not those who massage God’s word into acceptability. Because we have forgotten the terror of YHWH, we have failed to understand the immense gravity of our task as communicators of HIS word, and the severe consequences of a failure to do so faithfully. When we change God’s word to suit our audience, rather than speak God’s word in order to change our audience, we cause “many to stumble by (our) instruction”, and corrupt our calling.

The Solution: Return to "thus saith the LORD”

Come back to the passage: What was the priesthood expected to do again? They were to honor God’s name, lay the words of God to their heart, listen to God’s command, provide true instruction from God, turn many from iniquity and toward godliness, guard knowledge given them by God, & speak God’s messages to the people. Catch any common ideas in that list?

The Levitical Priesthood had two jobs, according to Deuteronomy 33:10 “They shall teach Jacob Your rules and Israel Your law; they shall put incense before you and whole burnt offerings on your altar.” That’s it. Sacrifice (which we’ve already discussed) and teaching God’s word.

Whose rules? Whose law? GOD’s rules! GOD’s law!

The phrase “thus saith the LORD” occurs over 400 times in the KJV of the Old Testament, and we as Christians could do much for the quality and frequency of our teaching if we would remember that simple phrase: “thus saith the LORD”!

God has spoken, and as such we have any right to adjust, abridge, or abstain from speaking God’s word in it’s wholeness and it’s purity.

If God is awesome, fearful, & wonderful, so too is His word, and we must treat it as such!

Application: How returning to God’s word will affect our teaching

We Choose to Speak God’s Truth No Matter the Price. As difficult as it may be, and as much we have to sacrifice in order to do so, we MUST SPEAK GOD’S TRUTH because souls are at stake. In our passage, the Levites had led people astray. If we refuse to speak and allow people to “live their lives” & go to their doom unwarned, how are we any better? Ezekiel 3 and Ezekiel 33 both emphasize the same point: We are accountable not just for our words, but our silence. Whether people hear or refuse to hear is their business, ours is speaking to them about that which matters most: “Thus saith the LORD”

We Teach God’s Truth to Profit Others We teach all of God’s word, and do not shy away from truths that call for radical changes in our own lives and the lives of those around us. If we refuse to share an aspect of the truth that will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins, guess who else will drown in their error? US! In our passage, to walk with God in peace and uprightness is paired with turning many from iniquity. We want to do the walking with God part, but leave the iniquity-turning to others. However, as we sing sometimes: “Christ has no hands, but our hands, to do His work today”, right? We must commit to sharing the whole counsel of God, because “Thus saith the LORD”.

We Submit to God’s Truth, Not Submit God’s Truth to Ourselves. The truth of God’s word is that to which we must conform, not the other way around. Faithfully applying God’s word to our lives as Christians and as a church is sometimes painful, difficult, and culturally unpopular. 150 years ago mechanical instruments in worship and female preachers were unheard of, and yet today they abound, even in places with “Church of Christ” on the sign. Has God’s word on this subject changed? As our culture barrels toward making the entire concept of marriage meaningless and divorce abounds, has God’s word on the permanence of marriage changed? Our culture celebrates sexual deviance on a scale not seen since the Greek empire: Has God’s teaching on the sexual relationship changed? No. And for that reason, we must continue to submit to God’s truth, because “Thus saith the LORD”.

Conclusion: Malachi 3.16-18

Malachi 3:16–18 ESV

“Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”

First, “Those who feared YHWH spoke with one another” Is that an accurate description of you? Are you one who fears God? Have you obeyed God’s gospel message of obedient faith in Jesus Christ? I submit to you that unless you obey the Gospel of Jesus, you do not fear God. You do not honor God. You do not regard God with awe. I say all those things because of the Philippian Jailer (Acts 16). When all of a sudden it was obvious that something miraculous had just happened (i.e. God had caused a great earthquake which opened all the prison doors and loosed all their bonds), the jailer went rushing into the cell of Paul and Silas, “and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16.29-30)

Second, God heard and recorded those who were His faithful people. God noticed their fear and their words. God was paying attention! God records in His book those who feared Him and esteemed His name (Have you heard that before?) God is paying attention today to all of us. What a comforting and terrifying thought that is! What does He see, at this moment? Are you faithful to Him, according to HIM??? Are you forgiven, according to His word??? If not, what are you doing about that, and when?

One day, God promises, He will again distinguish between righteous and wicked, those who serve Him and those who do not. Furthermore, God promises that HE would reveal it to all mankind. At least one more time, God will separate righteous from wicked, sheep from goats, right hand from left hand. He will spare His people, His treasured possession, “as a man spares His son who serves Him.” If you are not a child of God, you will not enjoy such protection, comfort, and peace. Romans 8:16–17 “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

Have you been buried with Christ in baptism? Are you serving Him faithfully as His priest?