Malachi 1:1-1:14 Honor God
Theological Proposition/Focus: Honoring God is not about rituals but is a matter of sanctifying God in your heart and that requires one's best.
Homiletical Proposition/Application: We must recognize that honoring God does not come from outside but emanates from within the heart of the one who is willing to give their best to their master.
Introduction: Let's strive for excellence (Col. 3:23)
Memory Verse: Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters
Image: Christian organizations should adopt the Air Force Core Values: Integrity first Service before self Excellence in all we do
I am sorry to say that in a lot of Christian organizations, I see none of these values. Today I want to talk about Excellence as an example and I am going to pick on Christian Sunday School curriculum because I have been involved in curriculum development a lot. I will be blunt, most curricula I have seen would not fly in the real world, it simply is not of a high quality. For some reason, Christian organizations often fail to demonstrate excellence in all they do. We blame it on low wages and volunteers but that should not change how we conduct ourselves!
Need: We need to honor God with our best
Preview: God is fully worthy of honor, yet we fail to show him proper honor. Nevertheless, God has chosen to love us and so we should strive to show God honor.
Text: Malachi 1:1-14
Setting the Stage:
The historical setting
In 539 BC Cyrus gave the decree allowing the Jews to return to Judah and begin rebuilding the temple.
In 520 BC Haggai entered the scene and called upon the Jews to resume building the temple after 16 years of stagnation.
The work on the temple was completed in 515 BC.
Life was not easy, Persia dominated the political scene, hearts were indifferent, even resentful to God, and the people's hope in God had waned.
Sometime between 450 BC and 430 BC a prophet, Malachi appeared on the scene.
Malachi 1:1
The first word in the book of Malachi is the Hebrew word מַשָּׂא (massa which means burden), this word is threatening by nature.
The burden is that there is a דְבַר־יְהוָ֖ה (word from Yahweh) to Israel spoken through Malachi.
In other words, the people need to listen because God has something significant to say, something that is a burden for Malachi.
I am not saying that today's sermon is a burden, but I do want us to pay attention to the words that God had for the Jews
Body (Malachi 1:2-14)
I am going to take a slightly different approach to this passage and start not with verse 2 but jump ahead to verse 6.
Principle 1: God is worthy of honor and his people regularly fail to show that honor. (6-9)
Showing honor to God is a natural, expected, response to the God of the universe. (6a)
There are natural honor relationships and anything outside of this natural order is an exception.
There are certain relationships that have a natural order to them. Sons are supposed to honor fathers. Yes, there are exceptions, but those exceptions are just that, exceptions. In the society in which this was written there were master-slave relationships and again a slave was to honor the master. The point that Malachi is making here is that there is some type of natural, expected honor in certain relationships.
The people had failed to show God the honor due to a father or master, an exception or a problem?
Based on this sort of natural or expected honor Malachi asked a pointed rhetorical question. If God is Heavenly Father, master, then why is honor or respect missing? Is this an exception or a bigger problem?
Obviously, this is not an exception. God is a good master, a good Father, so, there must be a problem.
When you offer anything less than your best you fail to show honor. (6b-7)
Malachi holds no punches: the problems start at the top. Failure stems from failure on the part of the priests.
This is significant. After returning from exile the priests should have taken the lead with the people. Instead, the priests we responsible for leading the people away from the honor shown to God.
A question: "How are we failing to show you honor?"
Image: Have you ever played dumb when you knew you were wrong?
I think this is what is happening here. The priests ask the question "What do you mean?" They claim they have been doing right when in fact they had not. The priests were either in denial or completely insensitive to their sin. In either case, the problem is significant. These individuals who should have been the leaders among the people were in fact leading the people astray.
The answer: the priests were offering defiled sacrifices - food
Leviticus 22:17-30 included specific stipulations on sacrifices: unblemished, i.e. the best
Another question: how have we defiled you?
Interestingly they do not say "we have not" instead they say how
The priests knew they were not innocent, they knew the law.
Really what they are doing is daring God to spell out their sin.
The reality was that the priests were simply going through the motions of sacrifice, the ritual, and even then they were not doing it properly.
Image: Growing up a PK and getting old food
Growing up my dad pastored a small rural church while raising four growing boys. We could eat and we did eat. I suspect that food was a very large component of our family budget. Thankfully, one family in the church owned a cattle business and so every year they provided us with a cow. It was a wonderful blessing. Now, there was another family, that decided they would give us some food as well. So, they would go to the food bank and take the food the had not been distributed and was well-expired, then they would bring that food by our house and drop it off. My parents were always very gracious but as I reflect on it I am somewhat appalled. Nevertheless, this is exactly what the people were doing here in Malachi, they were taking the old trash and offering it to God.
We know how to give our best so give it to God. (8-9)
The problem was so significant that God reminded the priests that even the governor would not accept such payment (v. 8).
But this example also demonstrated that the people knew what it was to give their best.
Instead of offering God their best, the people were offering God what was left over. Moreover, since the people were expected to give their best in other areas of life (i.e. government) they knew how to give their best to God.
In what is nothing short of sarcasm, Malachi calls on the people to beg God to accept their scraps.
Image: If we viewed giving like taxes
I want you to try something next year (actually I don't want you to do this at all because it will get you in a lot of trouble). Instead of paying your taxes, go out and spend the money first, then after you have enjoyed the little bit of extra money write a quick letter to the IRS and tell them that this year you just don't have enough money to pay your taxes. See how that works! It won't work, you will find yourself in a lot of hot water. Yet, so often, this is exactly what we do with tithing.
MTR: Evaluate your own efforts, does it represent your best?
Principle 2: A wrong heart and anything less than your best is not really any better than doing nothing. (10-14)
Have you ever heard the phrase "Something is better than nothing?"
In this case, I am not sure it is correct. Look closely at verse 10. You see
Wrong sacrifice is just as bad as no sacrifice and maybe worse. (10)
Worship that does not properly acknowledge God is not worship! Let's say that again!
We live in a world that is full of people who almost recognize God as God. I want you to realize something, God is either God or he is not and the applications of this are far-reaching.
There are several applications of the principle that God is either God or He is not.
The church down the street that thinks that Jesus is a great man is not worshipping God, they are not our allies in the world.
The church down the street that teaches that salvation comes through the church and good works is not worshipping God, they are not our allies in the world.
We are not doing any good by coming part of the way to God and then stopping.
Malachi argued that if you are not going to actually worship God then you might as well stop.
You might feel that I am being harsh and unfair here but I really think we need to more highly value God.
We are worshipping the God of the universe and there really is no room for worshipping anything less than the God of the universe, that is called idolatry, and even if idolatry is masquerading around as worship of God that does not mean it is worship of God.
God does not need sacrifice to receive honor, after all, He is God! (11)
Someone might respond "Well at least I am worshipping God in my own way." To that, God says, no! I don't need your worship, I will get the worship."
God's name is great and his domain is vast, he doesn't need a man to tell him that.
God is capable of, and one day will make sure that he is properly worshipped.
God is capable of drawing all nations to worship him, not just the Jews.
This is exactly what Jesus said would happen in John 4:23-24.
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
Sacrifice with the wrong heart profanes the sacrifice. (12-13a)
In verses 7-8 the actions of the priests were condemned, here the attitudes are the problem.
James 4:17 states "If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them." and it seems this is what is going on.
The priests felt like serving God in God's way was a burden so they did it their own way with a bad attitude.
Image: doing a job with the wrong attitude.
Have you ever worked on a job but had the wrong attitude about the job and so you only did the work partially or halfway? I think this is what is going on. The priests didn't want to do it God's way and so they did it their own way.
Sacrifice with less than the best is a cheat. (13b-14)
Really there is not much more to say here than just what the text says. When we cheat God we are cheating God.
MTR: Ask God to soften your heart.
I am struck first by the way the priests are acting. They are hard-hearted and have a bad attitude about it.
I think we can fall into this, we can begin to despise the work of ministry or serving or giving.
Motivation: God's love makes offering your best worthwhile. (2-6)
God's love is of first importance. (2)
The Qal perfect אָהַ֤בְתִּי (I have loved you) really carries the idea "I have always loved you."
We are looking at these passages out of order, remember in context God's love frames everything he has just said. God loves his people and that is of first importance.
There are all sorts of theological arguments that people have developed from this passage, but none of those changes the fundamental statement that God loved Israel. No matter what was said next, the people needed to know that God loved them.
Similarly, God loves you, and if you have accepted Jesus as your Savior then God has chosen to love you as his own son. This will never change!
If you are here today you need to know that God loves you and that his love for you has significant effects. He wants you to accept his offer of forgiveness, he wants you to worship him.
The people dispute this saying "How have you loved us?"
Again, this is a people who are suffering hardship and as we just saw, they are tired of the ritual and have really grown cold toward God. Just as a child who is rebelling against his parents might question their love so these people are questioning God's love.
You might be here questioning God's love.
Maybe something you have done leads you to doubt that God loves you.
Maybe something that has happened to you leads you to doubt God loves you.
Remember about 100 years had passed since returning from exile, maybe the people had given up on their hope for a messianic kingdom.
Maybe you have given up on some hope you had.
God responds with a rhetorical question: don't you remember that in the past I chose to love you, to bring Messiah through you?
Even though some might doubt God's ability to honor his promises, his promise was secure. (3-4)
Here love-hate is not emotional but rather positional, Jacob was chosen to be God's ally and Esau was not.
Nothing in the text is intended to communicate anything about the eternal destiny of either Jacob or Esau but rather God's chosen people/vehicle of blessing.
"Both Israel and Edom received judgment from God at the hands of the Babylonians in the sixth century (Jer. 27:2–8). Yet God repeatedly promised to restore Israel (because of His covenant promises, Deut. 4:29–31; 30:1–10), but He condemned Edom to complete destruction, never to be restored (Jer. 49:7–22; Ezek. 35)." [1]
God had uniquely chosen Israel as the vehicle of blessing and nothing, even judgment for sin, would change that decision. God love Israel and so even when times were hard he wanted them to know that he was at work.
God is not bound by anything. (5)
In particular, God is not bound to work within a confined space. Here God invites the Israelites to look outside and realize that God is at work and in fact has been at work, will be at work, and his work is evidence of his love.
MTR: Spend some time praising God for his love to you.
- ↑ Craig A. Blaising, “Malachi,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1576.
