The Currency of Intimcy

Introduction:

Every economy is driven by something. We live in a world where much of the economy is driven by fossil fuels. God has an economy, and His is driven by intimacy. Intimacy with God is formed by obedience and trust. As we grow in our faith, the trust we have in God builds and as that trust builds, the more intimate we become with God, and when that happens, God’s covenant economy flourishes, but what happens when we slack on the intimacy? What happens when we start looking at God as the big Santa Clause in the sky? When we don’t get what we desire from God, we slack off and become less intimate, and by extension, less obedient in our faith, and the economy starts to crash. This is exactly what happened to Israel after the return from Babylon, and we will see what the results of that crashing economy were in our text this morning.

Malachi 3:6–12 ESV

6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. 7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. 11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. 12 Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

In order to properly understand our text this morning, we must back up a little bit to chapter 2 verse 17. The entire book of Malachi revolves around a case of lost intimacy. The people were giving half of an effort in worshiping God and making their sacrifices, and the leadership was allowing this to take place, yet God gave them a solution to help them get back to where they needed to be. The book of Malachi has six oracles (often called disputations) that center around getting the people to understand their issue and why they felt so far away from God. The bottom line here is they lost their drive for intimacy.

Fourth Oracle (2.17-3.5)

In the fourth oracle of Malachi, God tells the people they have wearied them. Now, this will beg the question, “Does god get weary?” The simple answer is “No,” but what was happening here is making a parallel to chapter 1.13 where the people said it was a weariness to serve the Lord and keep the law. The people were battling complacency at this point in their worship. God tells them here that THEY are making Him weary with their words of disdain. The people were complaining about the success of those that were not His people, and using that as an excuse to back off of their worship.

God responds to this complain in 3.1 by saying, “I send my messenger (which is a play on Malachi’s name), and he will prepare the way before me, and what this is alluding to is the Messiah of God which will appear in about 400 years from the end of this book. What God is telling the people is that soon, He will right all the wrongs and correct all misguided thought, and the offerings of the people (including those of the spiritual leadership) will once again be considered holy and pure.

Then, if you look at verse five, God asserts to the people that His judgment will be swift, and exactly who His judgment will be directed against: sorcerers, adulterers, those who swear falsely, those who oppress the hired worker with their wages, the widows and orphans, and those who neglect the traveller, and also those who flat our disrespect God.

Fifth Oracle (3.6-12)

Then we move into the fifth oracle where God opens the passage up by using His covenant name of YAHWEH, and tells the people that He hasn’t changed and that is why, in spite of all the evil and bad people seeming to be successful that they haven’t been consumed by His anger because they have fallen away time and time again.

God presents their problem in verse seven by saying, “From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them.” He then presents then with the solution on how to fix the issue and that is “Return to me and I will return to you.” God then presents their counter argument of, “How do we return to you?” God basically tells them to stop robbing Him, and the people ask how they are robing Him, and he tells them that because of their complacent worship and offering less that acceptable sacrifices to him and withholding tithes and contributions. God the presents a challenge to them and tells them to test Him and bring the full tithe into the storehouse and see if he will not pur out blessings on them until there is no more need.

God the presents a challenge to them and tells them to test Him and bring the full tithe into the storehouse and see if he will not pur out blessings on them until there is no more need.

Sixth Oracle (3.13-4.5)

In the last oracle, God tells the people that their words have been harsh toward Him, and you can almost hear the people trying to sound innocent when they ask, “How have we been speaking harsh about you?” God tells them that they have been saying that serving the Lord was basically pointless because no matter how hard they serve the Lord the bad people seem to still prosper and they just get trampled.

Basically what was happening is the people had gotten into a selfish mode of worship and were only worshipping God because they desired to get something from God and when they weren’t getting it, they would say that it was pointless to serve God because He wasn’t responding to their worship.

Verse sixteen begins a parenthetical part of this passage and breaks away from the main passage for a moment. Here God points out that there will be a faithful few that will fear him and worship Him properly, and their names would be put in a book of remembrance, and they will be spared from the judgment to come, and finally in chapter four, we read of the impending Day of the Lord where God will cast final Judgment over all of creation and there is promise here in verse 2 that the “sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” He will burn off all of the impurities just as the morning sun burns off the dew from the grass.

Observe the Theological Proclamation (3.6)

In our text this morning, we see the immutability of God. In verse six, God tells the people that, in spit of all their complaining about God, He hasn’t changed and that is why they are still allowed to live on this earth. Go is calling His people here that He has remained faithful to the covenant that was made with them in spite of everything they have done and how often they have fallen away.

Times may change, cultures may change, but God does not. He remains faithful in spite of all of our shortcomings and disobedience. God’s word means the same now as it did when it was first written. His character is just the same today as it was when the words of this book were first put on paper, and because of that, we must take great care to listen to God’s word when it is proclaimed.

God calls His people to return to obedience (3.7)

In verse seven, we see the first of three imperatives here. God says, “Return to me and I will return to you.” The imperative here is that if the people truly desire to fix their situation, they must return to a state of obedience according to God’s law. These people had a track record of disobedience, yet God was faithful to not wipe them off the face of the earth completely, and He still loved them no matter how far away they would get.

Faithfulness is the currency of God’s covenant economy. God calls His people to faithful, obedient service no matter how far off course they drift, and He promises that His unchanging love will be right there waiting for them when they return. God simply requires obedience from His people, and as God’s people, we are called to be just as obedient, and when God speaks, we are called to not just hear what He is speaking, but put that into action.

James 1:22–25 ESV

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Just merely hearing the word is not sufficient. God’s word is made to change lives. We have to apply what we hear in our lives, and that manifests itself in actions. We are not saved by the work we do, but when we hear the word, we are to put it into action as an act of obedience. If we do not put it into practice in our lives, we are just like what James writes and we look in a mirror and when we leave we have forgotten what we have seen, but if the word really transforms us, them we become an example of the living word of God in our lives.

We can say we love God all day long, but if our actions do not follow that up, then it amounts to nothing. Our faith is not alive. God is a god of action, and that requires that we act when we hear the word and not just nod in agreement and say, “people really need to hear that.” We may not completely live up to God’s standard in this life, but if we make no effort to even try, then our faith is worthless and meaningless. We will never reach God’s standard here on this earth, but that is no reason to say, “serving God is weariness.”

God gets specific about stewardship (3.8-10a)

Stewardship is defined as, “the job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property.” God gets very specific here with the people about their stewardship. As we discovered in earlier chapters of Malachi, the people were withholding from God their perfect sacrifices and giving Him second-rate sacrifices that were blind and sick, and the priests were allowing this to happen. God tells the people that because of this they were robbing Him, and of course the people ask, “But how?” God tells them that their tithes and contributions were deficient.

The tithe: The tithe was considered minimum obedience to the law. Literally tithe means tenth. According to the law, every person was expected to bring their tenth to God.

The offering: The offering (contribution) was what was considered above and beyond the tithe. The tithe was a minimum act of obedience, and the offering was more than the minimum.

There is a difference noted here between tithes and offerings, and many times, we have made them synonymous, but that is simply not the case. One is a simple act of obedience (tithe) and one goes above and beyond what is expected (offering).

Gd then issues the second of three commands in the imperative “bring the full tithe to the storehouse…” God is calling the people to stop holding back on God and give back to Him what He requires as an act of obedience to Him. This ties back into the doing versus hearing of the word. The people knew the laws of God, and they refused to obey to the letter of the law in this case, and God tells them they were robbing Him, and He tells them, to get back into obedience by not withholding from Him anymore.

The Lord of Hosts doesn’t need our money, after all He is sovereign and has every resource at His disposal to use at His pleasure. God desires our obedience. And he lays out his expectations for the minimum amount of obedience here. He calls for the full tithe from His people. God also gets specific about where the tithe is to go. He says to bring it to the “storehouse that there may be food in My house.” The bottom line to this is God is calling His people to support their local house of God.

1. We often debate on where our tithes and offering should go, and scripture is very clear here. The minimum act of obedience should go to support your local (home church). Any other ministries you may support should be from your offerings. Many people call this “storehouse tithing.”

There is often debate on where our tithes and offering should go, and scripture is very clear here. The minimum act of obedience should go to support your local (home church). Any other ministries you may support should be from your offerings. Many people call this “storehouse tithing.”

God invites a test and promises a blessing (3.10b)

Once the obedience is met, look at what God promises in the rest of the verse: God invites us to test Him and this is the third command in this passage, this is the only place in scripture we find God allowing us to test Him. God says, “Put me to the test and see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.” God calls the people to test Him and see if He will not meet their needs in this simple act of obedience on their part; now, this doesn’t mean God is going to make you rich, but it does mean that your needs will be met by Him. Ultimately, tithing is an act of faith in the life of the believer.

Faithfulness is the currency of intimacy in God’s covenant economy, therefore our obedience shows God’s sufficiency in our lives.

Since God is faithful, the expectation He has for us is faithfulness as well. This is the currency of His economy. It is driven by faithfulness and obedience. Our faithfulness to God requires obedience. Simple obedience will bring down blessings that we could never imagine.

God never changes. His faithfulness stays the same. Humanity in their imperfections drifts away from God, and when that happens, we always end up back at the same question, “Where is God in all of this.” And God answers, “I am right where I have always been.” When evil runs rampant, and we start to ask where is God and why is He letting all of this happen, we must take a step back and check our obedience and see where we stand.

Lead others to be delighted and generous givers

God loves a cheerful giver

2 Corinthians 9:6–7 ESV

6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Lead by example

Resolve to be obedient and take God at His word

Believe that God will honor what is in your heart

Intimacy and fellowship with God ultimately lie in Jesus Christ

Jesus calls God father

Romans 8:15 ESV

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Jesus call us into an intimate relationship with Him

Revelation 3:20 ESV

20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.