God's Reputation

Introduction:

In retail, companies have a saying that says, “I can tell what kind of company you are by the company that you keep.” There is also a saying of, “Guilty by association.” As Christians, our attitudes are a direct reflection of God. What I mean by that is how we relate to other people and how we live our lives, are a direct reflection of how we relate to God. We are emissaries for God in a modern world. We represent God in all that we do. How we act throughout the week, directly reflects the work that God is doing in our lives. How we as a church operate is a direct reflection on God. When we keep Him front and center and strive to be the best we can be for God, that shows the outside world just what we stand for, and that is to let God be seen in the world.

When we get complacent and just go through the motions of worship and church life, that reflects on the relationship we have with God, and the people in Malachi’s day had the same issue and God diagnoses the issue and speaks to correct it in our passage this morning.

Malachi 2:1–9 ESV

1 “And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. 4 So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. 8 But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts, 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.”

What has happened here is when we backtrack just a few verses to chapter 1 starting in verse 6, we see that God speaks to the people through Malachi about their sacrifices. God opens the dialogue with posing the question, “If I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear?” God supposes a response from the people saying, “How have we disrespected you?” God then answers the question by telling them they have “offered polluted food on my altar,” and again poses another question from the people by saying, “How have we offered polluted food?” God explains that they are bringing less than acceptable offerings as sacrifices. In fact, he says in verse eight that they have been offering blind, lame, and sick sacrifices to Him, and then poses the rhetorical question by asking, “Would you offer that to your governor?”

Verse nine begins the call to repentance of the sinful behavior, and tells them to “entreat (plead) the favor of God that He may be gracious with us.” God tells them that because of their polluted and unholy offerings, that He has no pleasure in their offerings and that He does not accept what they are offering. In verse thirteen, we see the problem. The people say, “What a weariness this is.” What has happened is complacency has set in among the people, and they are just going through the motions, and no we see a transition happening here where God will now shift His focus from the people to the root of the issue which is the priests.

The curse of the spiritual leaders (2.1-4)

Church leadership has a very distinct responsibility. God gives a command directly to the priests in this passage, and he says it very clearly, “This command is for you.” God is calling the priests to honor His name and by allowing the second class sacrifices to come to the table, the priests were not honoring God properly. In essence, they were allowing the people to come and act in complacency.

Their actions faced dire consequences. Look at verse 3, and see what God says to the priests. He told him to take his command to heart, and that if he didn’t take it to heart, he would “spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offering, and you shall be taken away with it.” What God is saying here is that if they are going to offer worthless sacrifices, then the priests would be taken out with the guts of the sacrifices and thrown out of the city gates. They would be considered ceremonially unclean because of their complacency, and their offering are rejected, because their activities of worship were ceremonially unclean.

The correct behavior of the spiritual leaders (2.5-7)

In verses five through seven, God places His expectations of the people, especially the priests. He calls to mind the covenant he made with Levi in this scene. In order to understand just how serious God is about covenants, first, we must look at the word covenant. The word in the Hebrew means “to cut,” and in order to completely understand this, we must go back to and look at the scene with Abraham and God. In this scene, Abraham had to take the offerings and cut them in half and set the pieces on either side of the altar. When they were placed properly, God would then pass through those pieces signaling an acceptance of the covenant. Basically what is being said here is, “if I don’t keep up my end of the bargain, may I be cut in two or completely cut off from you.” This is how serious God takes covenants. It goes far beyond just a modern-day breach of contract.

God tells the people that in His covenant, there was life and peace and reverence and awe. What God is saying here is that service to God should never be burdensome, yet the people said back in 1.13, “What a weariness this is,” and basically they were scoffing at the act of the sacrifice itself. Here is a prime example of complacency in worship and service to God. God calls his people here back to service that is filled with joy and peace, and reverence and awe of Him and His glory, and those that are in a position of spiritual leadership should “guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Hosts.”

The current behavior of the spiritual leaders (2.8-9)

God is holding the spiritual leaders accountable for their actions here. He tells them, “you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted to covenant of Levi.” This is a very strong indictment against the leadership, and God is holding them responsible for their actions. When a leader gives half an effort, it causes the people to give half an effort, and by extension, the spiritual leaders are condoning the complacency of the people, and because of that, they showed partiality in the way they applied scripture. In essence, their complacent worship bred a complacent biblical application.

SINCE GOD DEMANDS OBEDIENCE FROM THOSE WHO MINISTER IN HIS NAME, WE ARE CALLED TO SERVE HIM WITH REVERENCE AND AWE.

Some may be thinking, “This is directed to the priests and I am not a spiritual leader, so this doesn’t apply to me.” What this is, is a snowball effect. Many of you may be sitting here today, and have been led down a path of complacency over the last several years. When leadership gets complacent, the people follow., but here is the take home with all of this: We are all ministers of the gospel in some way, shape, or for, and therefore God demands obedience from us.

God has set His expectations, and it becomes the job of the spiritual leaders to lead the people to that standard that God has set for His church. Some of you may be saying this morning, “I have paid my dues, now it is time for someone else to do the work.” That’s a complacent attitude. You may be tired and worn out, but you can still offer to pray with someone and become the wise counsel they need.

HUMAN LEADERSHIP IS FLAWED, JESUS IS NOT

Jesus lived the life no human being could live, and therefore, as the ultimate high priest, He has satisfied all of the requirements to be the mediator we need and make atonement for our sins. Too many times, we put spiritual leaders on a pedestal so high that when they eventually show a flaw, we become disappointed in them. I look at all these high profile pastors and think, “I wonder what their sin is?” Not that I am being critical of them, but there has to be something they struggle with. They all have imperfections. Maybe we have a former pastor that really touched our lives in some way and we see nothing wrong with their lives, and they stay on that pedestal forever. It’s not a bad thing to want to strive to be like someone spiritually, but we have to remember that they have flaws just like us.

Jesus is the only person that was ever been able to live a flawless life, and therefore, was able to present Himself holy and acceptable to God on our behalf, and that should be our role model for our lives.

HONOR THE NAME OF THE LORD

When we come with a complacent attitude to worship, we are already guilty of sin. I’ve been there. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe you worship with a pure heart week in and week out, that’s good, but I can tell you that when people come to worship, and the people here on this platform have been clouded by things from the outside, it affects everything the body does. Why do I spend so much time focusing on worship, and trying new and different things, because God is worthy of my doing something different and special for Him? We should always be willing to give Him our best worship effort not only on Sunday morning, but Monday through Saturday as well.

Honoring God’s name goes beyond just Sunday mornings. It should be a way of life. As Christians, we have a lot of leeway in our lives, but Paul spoke to this issue in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 when he talked about all things being lawful, but not everything is helpful. Here is he raising issues of conscience with the believer. He was speaking mainly about being invited to unbelievers houses and eating meat that was sacrificed to idols. Basically he tells the believers in Corinth that we should not dictate other people’s consciences on questionable matters just for the sake of holiness or appearing righteous, but he closes the passage out by saying in verse 31:

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Here he is calling attention to how we live our lives in front of unbelievers. If we think it is wrong, we should not partake of it, but ultimately it is about what glorifies God the most. When we pitch a fit about certain activities and boycott certain events, does that truly glorify God or just make you self-righteous? We should always be living to honor God’s name above all else and not our self-righteousness in this case.

AVOID PARTIALITY

The priests were guilty of partiality in this case, and Warren Wiersbe states they were possibly guilt of partially interpreting scripture. The people were offering second rate sacrifices and the priests were letting it slide. Maybe the people were offering excuses for not bringing their best lamb to the table and they were making “one-time exceptions.” What happens is this one time exception for one person begins a chain of events that rarely stops. You do it for one, then you do it for another, and then another (ad nauseum.) The priests were not holding people accountable for the cut-rate sacrifices.

The people were just going through the motions of worship at this point, and the priests were allowing it to continue so God placed His expectations for the priests and the people and expected them to live up to those expectations. Worship is not about our outward appearance, but how we stand up to God’s Word. When we set one exception for our standards, then it starts a snowball effect for the rest of everybody else.

We may criticize other churches for making people try out and interview for spots on the platform, but there is one word that drives the reasoning behind this: excellence. We serve a great God, and that should warrant our best. I don’t mean suit and tie best or all your gold jewelry in your box best, but our best attitude. It is about having an excellent heart for worship. Those that take the platform to led others to worship should be held to a higher standard than others. After all, it is their responsibility to lead the congregation to a proper sacrifice each week. If their worship is off, and they stumble, they will cause everyone else to stumble along the way, and in the end, the worship of the people is rejected.

SPEAK GOD’S TRUTH WITHOUT COMPROMISE

This may be a tough one for people, but we are all called to speak the truth without compromise. Scripture calls us to “speak the truth in love” (cf ) so we take this as a way to tell people they are “doing things wrong” under the guise of “I’m telling you this in a spirit of love.” I believe this is stretching the text in this aspect. It is not ok to go to someone and tell them, “I’m going to say this, but know that it comes with all the love in the world.” We are not given free license to criticize people under the theme of love.

We all have our convictions, and sometimes those convictions differ, but what we are called to do is to speak the truth out of humility. The gospel never changes, but we can never, under any circumstances, stop at how sinful we are. We have to present the entire gospel in a manner driven by love. We must never have a loose interpretation of scripture in order not to offend anyone. Sin is sin, and that’s the way it is, but we cannot keep hammering on just that point alone. We have to finish the story and tell people, they have a way out.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Scripture is profitable for first and foremost, teaching, then it reproves, it corrects, and it trains people in righteousness. We must hold fast to the teaching of scripture and learn what those teachings are for ourselves in order to be able to build others up. The more we learn about scripture, the more we will be affected by it personally, and then we can use that to teach others the truth of scripture. When you open your bibles are you looking to learn or just read? How does it affect you when you come to a point that hits you right between the eyes, do you gloss over it and say, “That’s a hard teaching, I’m not going to focus on that yet?” We must never sacrifice truth in order to accommodate people.

When we do that, when we start making exceptions to scripture, then we start sacrificing truth and compromising our beliefs.

Conclusion:

God’s reputation is at stake in and through the example of our lives and worship. When people outside a relationship with Jesus see us, what do they see. Do they see a hypocrite saying one thing and doing something completely different? Do you set yourself up on a pedestal thinking you are glorifying God through your life when all you are doing is offering a blind and lame goat day in and day out?