Sermon: "Malachi"

Fifth in the "Major Issues in Minor Prophets" series.
Delivered July 10, 2005 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

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Well on January 17, 1995 a freight train hit our house. It wasn't really a freight train, but it sounded like and it felt like it. Actually it was a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that hit the city of Kobe. It hit right as our alarm clock was ringing that morning. In 20 seconds 102,000 buildings fell. 300,000 people were made homeless. In 20 seconds $150 billion worth of damage was done to government buildings alone in the Kobe-Osaka area. It was an incredible devastation that hit the city. Perhaps the most costly event in dollars of any event in modern history, or at least up until that time. We were part of that and we part of God's response, the churches response in that location.

Now it was an internationally-known event and so churches all over the world started to get involved in trying to help with the needs in Kobe, and churches also in Japan responded, and we were part of a network that connected with a lot of the churches there that spoke English. And so, people started to gather together food, clothing and things like that to send to the city of Kobe and we were on the receiving side, taking those things in and trying to pass them on to the people who had greatest need and I want you to know that that experience of receiving those gifts from those churches was one of the most distressing things that I experienced following the earthquake. And the reason why that was: now believe me I am not talking about all the gifts, the majority of gifts were wonderful and thoughtful, but mixed in to that among these gifts from the churches were all kinds of old, beat-up items. It was obvious that people had gone and cleaned out their pantries in response to that. So we had things that weren't labeled at all. We didn't know what was inside the can. We had other things like this. I actually went and cleaned out our pantry to get ready for this and this is something that's a year out of date. I am not 100% sure, well I do know what it is, but I bet you don't know what it is. It's all kinds of things that were way past expiration. There were things given that were opened and partly used. And some of the clothing that was given was torn up, dirty, stained. What became apparent was that people were giving what was useless to them, what was worthless to them, what was convenient for them to give; even if it wasn't particularly useful or safe even, for the people they were giving it to. And we started to realize that this problem was not that people were just giving the useless and worthless things of their lives, but also they didn't really care that much about what we actually needed.

Now I have to give you a picture of what it was actually like in Kobe at that time. We finally got so many things given to us that we couldn't effectively give them away anymore. Now we are in the middle of a city that has no garbage service going on. Things are piling out in the street; garbage, broken furniture, pieces of buildings are being stacked out in the street along with the houses that fell in to the streets. And so we are now getting so much stuff that we can't give it away and it's filling up the churches and we are now actually having to start throwing away things that actually should have been thrown away 500 miles away at another church. At a time like that we get a phone call from a church and they say, "What do you need? We are getting ready to do a clothing and food drive and we want to send you these gifts." I said, "Hold on. Why don't you wait a month or two until everybody's attention is elsewhere, when there is a new tragedy and then give then and we might have some real things that we need at that point we can tell you about, and if you want to give now why don't you send us some fire extinguishers" because that's what we needed. There was no water in the whole city of Kobe. We didn't have water for 26 days. We were getting water out of a creek in order to flush our toilets and there was a fear about fire with all these wooden buildings in the city, with all of these gas mains broken and everything else like that, there was a real fear of fires since there was no water for the firemen to fight the fires with. Everybody wanted fire extinguishers. Send us that. A week later a truck arrived at the church. Inside were clothes and food and no fire extinguishers. And on top of it all the people who gave it were sort of upset with us that we weren't more appreciative; appreciative for things that we really couldn't use.

It's bad enough that we do this sometimes with one another. The real tragedy is we try to do this with God. I want to read to you some words that came from God through the prophet Malachi at a time in Israel's history where they were showing disrespect to God by what they offered God. Chapter 1, the Book of Malachi, I am going to begin at the 6th verse. If you want to look in to a Bible, it's the last Book of the Old Testament, right before the New Testament Book of Matthew.

"A son honors his father and a servant his master. If I am a father where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?" says the Lord Almighty. "It is you O priests who show contempt for my name."
"But you ask, 'How have we shown contempt for your name?'"
"You placed defiled food on my altar."
"But you ask, 'how have we defiled you?'"
"By saying that the Lord's table is contemptible. When you bring blind animals for sacrifices, isn't that wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, isn't that wrong? Try offering them to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the Lord Almighty.
"Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?" says the Lord Almighty.
"Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the Lord Almighty, "and I will accept no offerings from your hands. My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the Lord Almighty.
"But you profane it by saying of the Lord's table, 'It is defiled,' and of its food, 'It is contemptible.' And you say, 'What a burden!' and you sniff at it contemptuously," says the Lord Almighty.
"When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?" says the Lord. Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king, says the Lord Almighty and my name is to be feared among the nations."

Let's pray: Gracious God, we pray that whatever we hear from you word that we need to hear that we will hear, and anything else Lord, we pray that you will blot those things from our minds, for we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Giving on our own terms. Giving what's convenient. Giving what's useless and cheap. Israel had had a long experience with God. It began with the forefather Abraham who had faith in God and God gave him promises and he believed God and from Abraham there developed a nation, that nation expanded in number. They were slaves in Egypt at one point in their lives and God delivers them out of Egypt through a series of great powerful actions. And not only do they leave Egypt, but they go from Egypt with the Egyptians giving them money to just get away. So they walk out with the riches of the nation around them and then they go and God protects them and God opens up a new land for them. He gives them victories over several enemies. They settle in a new land and prosper because of God's grace. They have a long history of ups and downs with God. There are times when things get so bad with Israel that he pushes them out of the land and the temple that he causes to get built he destroys.

Well Malachi speaks at a time where Israel has been brought back in to their land and the temple has been rebuilt and they are starting to prosper and yet in the midst of this the priest and the people start to get selfish and careless. See the law of God didn't require a huge amount of your property to be sacrificed to God. Among the animals only a few needed to be sacrificed, but they were supposed to be healthy. They were supposed to be worth something. And that's because God knew, that this sacrifice was a picture of the real sacrifice that was to come: Jesus Christ. And so even though the people didn't fully understand, God was saying that this was supposed to be a healthy, a good, a valuable, a pure sacrifice because this is picturing a mighty, pure sacrifice that I am going to give on your behalf in Jesus Christ. And so, God asks for this kind of offering to be made and so these people come and they do the offering at the right time, they use the right words, they do it in the right place, but they don't offer to God what he asked to be offered. Instead of offering their best, they offer blind, lame, mangy, sick animals and this is an economic thing, because these animals were not worth anything. You couldn't breed them. They would not put on weight and probably wouldn't even live, so why not sacrifice them now. It is something they wouldn't dare offer a governor or a king or some other kind of ruler; they offer to God. And what's God response to that, it comes up in Verse 10 of this passage. "Well that one of you would shut the temple doors so that you wouldn't light useless fires on my alter. I am not pleased with you and I will not accept these offerings from your hands."

Now we live in the New Testament, new covenants. We don't have to offer God offering for sin. Jesus Christ is the offering for sin; a pure sacrifice without blemish given by God. No other sacrifice has to be offered for that, but that does not mean that we don't have things that God calls us to offer. God calls us for example to offer praise and prayer to God. God calls us to offer our time. God calls us to offer our money. God calls us to offer our obedience. God calls us in Romans, Chapter 12, to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. There is plenty that we are supposed to offer God. The question we need to ask ourselves is what's the quality of what we offer? What's the quality of what we are giving back to God?

We talk about quality time. Quality time is that time that we have where we can get together with our kids, where we are alert and they are alert and everybody is sort of relaxed and we actually have enough time to actually have some fun or get something done together. That's quality time. At work, we think about if we have control over our schedule with certain times of the day that we feel creative and energetic and that's the time of the day that we do our best work. We want to protect that. But what about God? What kind of time do you offer God? What kind of time do you offer to your devotions, for reading the scriptures and praying? What kind of time do you offer to serving God in the church? What kind of time do you offer to serving God out in the community? I am talking about the good time; the time that you would rather spend watching television or at the computer, the time you would rather spend playing golf or going to the tennis court; the time you would rather spend shopping. What's the quality of the time we offer to God?

What about our prayer and praise? Do we only pray about the things that we really worry about or do we pray about some of the things that are on God's heart, but are in different places in the world like Haiti? Do we pray for the ministr, to people who have AIDS in this country and other parts of the world? Do we pray about the spread of the knowledge of Jesus Christ? Or do we just pray about the things in our own lives? What about praise? Do we only praise God and thank God when we are getting things or do we praise God because he is worth praising?

What about our money? Do we give from the top, the best ten, the first ten percent? Or do we only give to God after we have spread it all out on all the other things we want and whatever is left we give from that?

What about obedience? What do we offer God there? Is it do we obey only when it's easy? Do we obey only when people are watching? One of the things that someone has said is who you really are is who you are when nobody else is watching. So what is it like about our obedience?

There are all kinds of areas that God calls us to respond. In fact, it says that we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices and the fact is apart from these areas of life, what else is there to offer? So when we look at the quality of how we offer our time to God, our obedience to God, our prayer and praise to God, our money to God, when we look at this as a whole package that is what we are offering to God of ourselves and what does it look like? Is it out of date, beat up, worthless? Or is it from our best, because God calls us to give the very best we can.

We saw this illustrated in our own lives at that same time about two months after the earthquake, finally the mail started to come again and one day we got a package of melons from some friends in another part of Japan, Christian friends. It was an amazing moment. We opened up this box and there were four, six, I can't remember exactly melons sitting there. The very highest quality thing they could buy. It probably cost them $100 to purchase the melons, package them and send them, send them overnight. The first time the mail came through, this is what they sent. This is the sort of gift that you would give to your boss in Japan. This is the sort of gift you would give to a best friend and here are these friends, Christian friends back in another town and the first thing they send to us when they get a chance is the best they can offer. What is it that we offer God?

In Chapter 3, another part of the message from God through Malachi comes to the people and this time God is saying "Look, give it, because I am telling you that you will never regret putting me first." So let's hear what God says in Chapter 3. I am going to begin on Verse 6 of Chapter 3 of Malachi.

"I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and haven't kept them. Return to me and I will return to you," says the Lord Almighty.

"But you ask, 'How are we to return?'"
"Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
"But you ask, 'How do we rob you?'"

"In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse, the whole nation of you because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe in to the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I won't throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you won't have enough room for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields won't cast their fruit," says the Lord Almighty. "Then all of the nations will cause you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the Lord Almighty.

Here, God is saying, Look, trust me in this. I am in control of the entire environment around you. Your success is not ultimately just a matter of what you put in to it, but all of the blessing, all of the support, all of the circumstances I have put around it. I control that and I am for you. And so God says give me your best wherever it is, whatever part of life and I guarantee you won't regret it, because I control all the rest. Seek me first and everything else meaningful will be added on to you as well. It sounds familiar doesn't it because that's what Jesus said in the New Testament. He said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the rest of our needs will be added to us as well. So there's two reasons in the Book of Malachi to give our best to God. The first comes up in the first chapter, the 11th verse where it says "I am a great God and all of the nations will worship me." We give because God is worth it. God is the creator and he has given his best to us and he deserves us giving the best back. The second reason is, is because that God who has given his best in Jesus Christ certainly will he not through him give us all that we need. So God gives us a challenge here. Test me in this and see if I don't open up the floodgates of heaven and bless you. Do you think I am asking you for the best because I want to hurt you? I am asking you for the best because as you give me your best, I can give you my best back. It's the word from God through Malachi. Test me in this and see if I don't throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you won't have enough room for it. Are we ready for that test? God is.

Let's pray. God, we are all over in our lives and there are times that we give well, there are times that we fall so far short of giving you our best. And so Lord in different areas of life we pray for insight on how we can offer ourselves better to you and we pray now for the faith and conviction based in your Word that nothing we ever do for you, nothing we ever offer to you is lost, but you will bless us now and in the age to come, for you have sent your blessing to us in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

© 2005, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org