Today we continue our series in the book of Malachi. Specifically, we will see how the Israelites dishonored God by giving Him only their bare minimum.
We’ve all been on the receiving side of the “bare minimum” before, haven’t we?
- The cashier at the checkout register who has even less joy than hustle?
- The Mother’s Day card that is just a blank sheet of paper folded in half with “Happy Mother’s Day” on it and looks like it took 15 seconds of effort?
- A student who turns in homework to which they have given absolutely no effort – short, incomplete answers, not even close to correct. But hey! They turned it in on time!
When you are on the receiving end of such minimal effort – such pathetic attempts – does it make you feel you are important or that the other person cares about their job? Not at all. You think about avoiding that store. You feel taken for granted as a mom. You wonder why you bother teaching if the kids don’t care.
Most of us understand the importance of giving our best at work, and we understand the consequences of giving the bare minimum in a marriage. (Maybe some of you have been in the “doghouse” because you took your spouse for granted.) We know that if we care about someone or some accomplishment, we need to go “above and beyond” to show that this person or that goal is significant to us.
It’s not good enough to put just a tiny bit of effort into anything. We expect more than that from others. In any relationship, if people care about us at all, we expect effort to show us we are as important to them as they are to us.
We see this scenario play out in the book of Malachi. While God had that same expectation for His special, covenant people, they didn’t show their love for Him in the same way He showed His love to them.
Today’s message, still in the first chapter of Malachi, comes in two parts, both of which are God’s message to the priests at the temple. They are failing in their job, and in doing so they are dishonoring God.
Inferior Sacrifices
First we will see how the priests were failing God by allowing inferior sacrifices from the people.
Pay attention to two contrasting words in Malachi 1 – “Honor” and “Contempt.” Honor” is how you treat something of great value. “Contempt” means disregarding something or someone as worthless. Obviously, God deserves honor from the entire world, but that’s not what He feels from the Israelites. Let’s read Malachi 1-6-14.
God deserves honor from the entire world,
Why He Deserves Honor
God begins by demonstrating WHY He deserves honor. He is both their Father and their Master, and yet He feels that their behavior is dishonoring. He calls it “contemptible” (a word used five times in this passage). Some of your Bibles may alternate between “despise” and “contempt,” but the same Hebrew word is used in these five instances. (An interesting connection here is that “contempt” was what Esau showed for his birthright when he sold it for soup. Esau was rejected by God, as we saw in last week’s passage.) God contrasts the Israelites’ contempt with the honor He deserves and will one day receive from every nation. There is a bit of foreshadowing here.
The contempt was shown in the peoples’ offerings of worthless animals. Basically they were bringing the livestock they were going to cull from their herds anyway – the ones that served no purpose. God called them out on this worthless, inferior, defiled sacrifice. He pointed out that they would never give those sacrifices to their governor; they knew better. And yet they disregarded God by trying to appease Him with a defiled sacrifice.
God Doesn’t Need Sacrifices
When the people gave faulty offerings to God, they missed the point of what a sacrifice is. Sacrifice is a response to love. God doesn’t NEED the sacrifices. He isn’t like the gods of the other nations that need to be fed by the people. Sacrifice to the true God must be a love response; and so defiled sacrifices demonstrate their pathetically tiny appreciation for God.
God doesn’t NEED the sacrifices… Sacrifice to the true God must be a love response;
God’s response to this mess is that He wished someone would put an end to these pathetic offerings by just locking the temple doors and putting out the fires. He would prefer NO sacrifice to one that actually dishonors His holy Name! This passage reminds me of Jesus’s words to the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:15-16, where He says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
Jesus would rather you be all in or all out. He would rather you give Him the sacrifice He deserves (one that costs you something) or no sacrifice at all. He’s not interested in getting your bare minimum. He doesn’t want you to be tepid, at best, or “kind of a Christian” on Sunday mornings.
They Missed the Point
The Israelite’s problem was that they didn’t understand why God instituted these sacrifices. Sacrifice is an opportunity to honor, not an obligation. The Israelites missed that point. They saw it as a burden. They took for granted that the God who is above all people of the earth and all other so-called “gods” had chosen them! He wanted them to be His special people, to be in covenant with Him for all eternity. He chose to care for and elevate them, and all He expected in return was their honor and recognition of His greatness.
Because the Israelites saw this arrangement as an obligation, they cheated the system. They promised pure animals and then brought in ones with blemishes, which shows that they truly didn’t understand the relationship God was trying to have with them. A covenantal relationship of love turned into obligation and burden. Once that happens, relationships fall apart.
New Sacrifice Paradigm
Here’s where this text hits us like a ton of bricks. We do the same thing! In the New Testament we get a new picture for sacrifice. We no longer bring bulls and rams to the temple, but, instead, our very lives are a sacrifice to God.
Romans 12:1 – Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.
If your very life is your sacrifice to God, then what kind of sacrifice are you giving to Him? Are you giving God your very best? Is your life one that is pure and worthy of the God you serve? Or are you giving Him a blemished sacrifice? Are you giving your leftovers? Are you doing the bare minimum? Do you resent that He wants your time AND your money? So do you do just enough to not feel guilty? Has your relationship with God moved from one of love and joy to one of obligation?
What kind of sacrifice are you giving to Him?
If that’s you, how do you think God feels about the sacrifice of your life you are giving to Him? What would it look like for you to give Him the best of you and better honor Him with your life? Chew on that this week.
Inferior Teaching
In Malachi 2:1-9 God gives a warning to the Priests who were failing the people with inferior teaching about God.
God had a special covenant of blessings and curses with Levi, who earned the honor of revering God. However, the current priests were to face shame and dishonor for how they dishonored God.
Why, exactly was God upset with the priests?
Whereas “True Instruction” was on Levi’s lips and he “turned many from sin,” that is not the case with these priests in Malachi’s time. They had “turned from the way’”and “caused many to stumble.”
This is a big deal! The priests were changing their teaching, perhaps watering it down, and avoiding the truth of God’s law. Maybe they were teaching things that weren’t true, and maybe they were avoiding parts of the law they didn’t want to teach. Whatever the case, it was inferior teaching – not what God wanted from the priests. End result: rather than turning people from sin, it caused many to stumble.
Pastors Today and Inferior Teaching
No pastor wants to be accused of leading people down the wrong road, but that’s exactly what God is calling out here.
I get it! For a pastor there is a constant, silent pressure to help clean up God’s message to us – to make it safer and more acceptable. We want people to like God, and so we want to help Him out and hide His rough edges. We avoid teaching tough topics, or we turn a blind eye to bad behavior. We just let people do what they want to do and don’t ever speak into the situation.
Malachi won’t let me do that! Last week we talked about God hating Esau, and next week we will talk about divorce; but as the pastor and leader of this church, my job is to faithfully teach these passages. I don’t pound my Bible and tell you to do better and work harder for God, but I do have to explain and teach what God wants and doesn’t want from you. I have to encourage you to take the sometimes difficult steps to follow Him
You are a Priest
Here’s why this section of the text hits home for you as much as for me. Today we think of pastors as priests and teachers. And I am. But so are you. Just as the New Testament flips the sacrifice paradigm, it also flips the priest paradigm. All believers, regardless of their roles in the church, are called a royal priesthood.
1 Peter 2:5 – You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
So I’m not the only one being made accountable for preserving knowledge as a messenger of the truth. We all share that role in small ways. Some of you are Sunday school teachers. Most of you are parents and grandparents. We all have people who look at our lives to see how we live out our beliefs. At some time we all get into conversations about spiritual topics.
The question is: how do you respond in those situations? Do you gently speak the truth in love like we discussed a couple of weeks ago? Or do you constantly skirt the issue in an effort to keep the peace? I’m not asking you to beat the same drum every time you see a family member living a life that is far from God, but are you EVER willing to say something or to challenge them for more?
Conclusion
We all know giving your bare minimum doesn’t cut it in life. But sometimes, as all our other obligations and relationships take our time and energy, we find ourselves giving God the leftovers. We treat Him like He is our tenth-most-important priority, but He is not OK with that! He will settle for nothing less than first place in our lives.
God has given us everything; and, in return, He asks us to give Him the honor He is due. That means we must first seek the truth about how He wants us to live. We don’t just believe He exists and then go on with our lives however we want. We need to seek true instruction.
Then we have to actually live out that instruction. If we are a living sacrifice, then He desires our obedience to true instruction. We must honor Him with our very lives and not just our lips.
Philippians 2 tells us that God gave Jesus the name (and the honor) that is above every name. At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. This means that one day in the future every being ever created will give Jesus all honor and all glory. That’s our future! And it’s not an obligation. Once we see His glory for ourselves, THEN we will understand the incredible opportunity God gave us by allowing us to start early!
All glory and honor to Jesus our King!
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