Giving Your Best to the Best
Notes
Transcript
If I were to put a title on today’s message,
it’d be
Giving your best to the best.
Let’s pray.
Today we start a new series.
It’s way shorter than the other two series that we’ve had.
In our church, we have gone through the kingdom theme and the book of Luke.
These two series were several months-long, respectively.
This next series will only last one month if that.
We will be looking at the book of Malachi,
a book that has three chapters in Hebrew,
or four chapters in English.
The book in Malachi is in the Hebrew Scriptures,
our Old Testament.
Remember, the Bible is a library of books.
And it has two sections:
The Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament
And the New Testament.
We can find the book of Malachi in our Bibles right before the New Testament begins.
It’s right before Matthew,
and after Zechariah.
Malachi lived about 2,500 years ago,
back in the 500-400 BC.
During the time when the Jews--
remember, the Jews, Abraham’s descendants,
God had delivered them from the nation of Egypt and made the Jews into a mighty kingdom--
the nation of Israel.
Well, eventually, the nation of Israel fell.
It was captured by the Assyrians, then the Babylonians.
After Babylon fell, the Persians took over.
The Persians allowed the Jews to return to their land.
They are restored to a degree.
Their religious temple that was destroyed was rebuilt.
They were still under Persian power, but they were free to worship.
Malachi speaks at this time—in this setting.
And as we will see, Israel was in a bad spot:
The priests, the religious leaders of Israel, had dishonored God.
There were internal conflicts within this time.
But Micah addresses the Israelites to help them and remind them of the restoration God will bring.
Let’s open our Bibles first to Malachi 1:1
A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.
God would speak to his people through what we call “prophets.”
You might have heard some of the better-known ones like Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, or Daniel.
But Malachi belongs to the same group—he was a prophet.
In fact, Malachi’s name in hb. really helps him as a prophet.
In hb., Malachi’s name is
מַלְאָכִֽי
And it means, my messenger.
So here we have a prophet whose name indicated that he was God’s messenger.
And Malachi would herald the words of God.
He would relay the word of the LORD to Israel.
Remember,
Israel was God’s people.
They were descendants of Abraham, who had a covenant with God.
They’re in the promised land,
but are they serving God?
This is written to the Israelites.
We are not Israelites, but there is wisdom we can glean from the words of God in the book of Malachi.
And we do relate to the overall story of Malachi and of the Bible.
The Hebrew Bible is relevant to Christians
...
Let’s continue reading—Malachi 1:2-5.
“I have loved you,” says the Lord.
“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’
“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.”
But this is what the Lord Almighty says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’
As I said before,
God had a unique relationship with Israel.
Here, God states that he has loved the Israelites.
The Hebrew word for love is
אָהֵ֑ב
Love is a good translation of the word.
It can be affection that takes place within close relationships.
It can be familial or romantic.
It can transcend social classes.
And as we see here,
it can describe God’s love for his people.
God loves his people.
Israel was God’s people.
In this context, אָהֵ֑ב could also mean to choose or elect.
God chose and elected Isreal,
and thus made Israel his people—his children.
We, through Christ, are now God’s people.
And God אָהֵ֑ב us.
He loves us.
And we know that he loves us,
because we could’ve ended up in a worse situation.
He elected us, chose us, not because of anything that we have intrinsically,
but he chose out of his own love.
Love is one of the biggest themes within Malachi.
...
Israel doubted God’s love for them.
So the Israelites asked,
How have you loved us?
Maybe you have thought about that.
How has God loved us?
He has certainly loved us by sending his only Son as John 3:16 says.
He loves so much to give his only son so that we could have eternal life.
But in Israel’s case,
how had God loved Israel?
...
Well, you Bible geeks might know the story between Jacob and Esau.
God uses this story about Jacob and Esau to demonstrate his love for Israel.
So, Jacob and Esau were brothers.
Family is a big theme within Malachi.
Jacob and Esau were both grandsons of Abraham.
The firstborn, Esau, was supposed to continue the legacy.
His people were supposed to God’s people.
They were supposed to flourish.
But through a series of events,
Jacob became the chosen one.
Jacob became Israel—that’s where we get the name of the nation.
And his descendants experienced God’s blessings.
Even though culturally, Esau was supposed to be the leader of God’s people,
God had chosen Israel, and Israel had been blessed.
It’s like,
you know that God should have chosen someone else.
But he chose you.
And he chose you, because he loves you.
...
Esau did not have the same blessings as Israel.
Esau and his descendants, the Edomites, had been destroyed.
They had been defeated by the foreign nations and were unable to build.
They were sinful and prideful and, therefore, they suffered God’s judgment.
God hated Esau.
...
That’s hard language.
Some have seen the Hebrew word that Malachi used for hate as a word that means to reject or not loved.
The Edomites had rejected their relationship with God.
And God had rejected them.
Others say that God actually hated Esau for good reason.
The nation had become wicked, violent, and hateful.
As Andrew Hill, a professor from Wheaton, said,
Because Yahweh is a God who hates, he also judges and destroys in his wrath all those who oppose and hate him
God hated, or not-loved, or rejected the Edomites;
thus the Edomites were unable to rebuild after defeat.
They ceased to exist.
But Israel had survived the battles.
And it still survives today,
because God has loved Israel.
He has shown his love through his grace and by preserving Israel through all the battles.
God has loved Israel.
And Israel had started to rebuild.
But this is the question that is super important:
Has Israel loved God?
“A son honors his father, and a slave 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 priests who show contempt for my name.
“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’
“By offering defiled food on my altar.
“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’
“By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty.
“Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the Lord Almighty.
A son is supposed to honor his father.
We know this.
It’s one of the ten commandments:
honor your parents.
A slave, though fortunately the formal institution of slavery has been overthrown here in the States,
a slave was still supposed to honor his master.
This isn’t advocating slavery nor condoning it.
It’s simply making the observation that slaves honor masters.
So:
sons honor fathers
slaves honor masters.
Well, in the biblical narrative, God is both the father and master of Israel.
God is the Father because he established the nation, and raised the nation.
And he is the master because the Israelites were servants of God.
They were supposed to do the will of their Heavenly Master by spreading his peace.
Therefore, as both father and master of Israel, the Israelites was supposed to honor God as their father, just like a son would honor his father,
and they were supposed to honor God as their master, just like slaves did.
But the Israelites had dishonored God, their Father.
...
We also see God as Father, because we have been drafted—adopted—into God’s family.
We pray,
Our Father
God is our father.
He has given us eternal life.
We have a new birth.
And these words that God had said to Israel can apply to us.
We are God’s sons and daughters.
And we must honor him,
with our lifestyle,
our choices,
our thoughts, and our words.
And also,
we call Jesus Lord,
or Master,
indicating that we are his subjects.
We are supposed to honor Jesus by doing what he has asked us to do.
But I wonder whether we are honoring our Father and Master,
or if we are dishonoring him.
I mean, I think, for the most part,
unless there is a significant reason,
we want to honor our humanly father or mother.
And similarly, we should also want to honor God.
But sometimes we dishonor him.
I mean a lot of times, we dishonor God.
Israel was dishonoring God.
...
Malachi first addressed the priests.
The priests were dishonoring God.
Malachi didn’t first address the casual layperson,
but instead, he addressed the religious leaders—
the ones who were supposed to have a close relationship with God.
But they—the priests—were dishonoring God.
They despised God’s name.
God’s name in Israel’s time talked about the person and reputation of God.
It was holy.
And people were supposed to honor his name.
It was something personal.
It was a manifestation, expression, or representation of God’s character.
It was his nature and character as revealed in his words and acts
The priests knew God’s name.
Knew that it was holy,
great,
and majestic.
...
Yet, the priests were dishonoring God’s name.
And the priests didn’t even know it.
I wonder whether we dishonor God without even knowing it.
Actually, it’s very likely that we have dishonored him without knowing it,
and we should repent of it.
In the priests’ case, how did they dishonor God?
Well, the priests didn’t care about what they took to the altar.
Don’t think of altar as we do now,
an altar back then was not this what we see up here,
but rather, it was a place where the priests would take their animals to sacrifice to God.
It was a place where they would sacrifice livestock to God.
They had different types of altars as we could see on the screen.
The Israelites were supposed to follow Deuteronomy 15:21 when they sacrificed animals.
If an animal has a defect, is lame or blind, or has any serious flaw, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.
The priests weren’t supposed to sacrifice an animal that had a defect, that was lame, or blind, or had some other serious flaw.
Instead, the priests were supposed to sacrifice the best of the best.
But as we can see,
the priests had dishonored God by giving polluted food.
And you know,
the priests probably thought,
“Oh you know. It’s not that important.
It doesn’t matter what kind of sacrifice we give to God.
If we give anything, God will accept it.”
But God had said that the Israelites were supposed to sacrifice the best of the best.
...
Sadly, the priests had become indifferent towards the altar...
They became irreverent towards the things of God.
I think we can reflect on this.
Ask yourself,
“Have I been taking something lightly that God takes seriously?”
“Have I been taking something lightly that God takes seriously?
...
Maybe it’s worship.
Do we give worship our best?
When we are worshiping, do we give it all we have?
Do we give all we can to sing that our Father is worthy of it all?
Or maybe it’s our involvement in God’s body.
Look at your involvement within the church,
are you giving all your gifts to your master in servitude,
giving your best,
or are you giving leftovers?
You don’t necessarily have to volunteer at this church to serve God with your gifts.
But consider whether you are using all your gifts within your work.
It could also be our discipleship or our relationship with God.
We learned through our time in Luke that God wants it all.
But are we just giving him our leftovers?
Or what you think is fitting.
We might think that it’s not that important,
but to God, it is very important.
Honestly, we could be dishonoring God through our indifference,
we could be dishonoring God by giving what we think is enough—
by giving the bare minimum.
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The priests were giving blind, lame, weak livestock.
Animals that were worthless.
They were supposed to be giving the best.
The priests should have been offering the animals that were worth the most.
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God brought up this fact:
what the priests were giving to him, they wouldn’t give to the governor.
If they tried giving the worst animals to the governor as a gift, the governor would be offended.
The governor wouldn’t have seen the gifts as gifts because they were leftovers—the worst.
If a priest had given the governor a lame sheep, the governor would be like, “Dude I don’t want that.”
I like what Kaiser Walter wrote.
He said imagine someone writing this to the government:
Malachi: God’s Unchanging Love In Our Gifts (1:8–9)
Dear Sir,
Please accept this sick cow in lieu of the taxes I owe you. I trust that the old ‘bag’ recovers and will prove more useful to you than she has been to me. Frankly, I just can’t spare anything more than this at the present time.
Oh yes, please look after those requests that I made. I trust you will be able to improve our local roads and upgrade the quality of our education.
Sincerely,
Would the government stand for such action?
No,
It would be unacceptable.
It’s not good.
Yet, the priests were giving what was unacceptable for the governor—they gave it to the cosmic king.
The priests would give to God what they wouldn’t give to humans.
People are supposed to give their best to God.
We are supposed to give our best to God.
But we don’t.
As Kaiser Walter said,
Malachi: God’s Unchanging Love In Our Gifts (1:8–9)
The ruler of heaven and earth, oftentimes, gets treated more miserably than any human potentate ever would tolerate
...
With our friends,
we’re not on our phones.
Otherwise, it’d be disrespectful if we just ignore our friends.
Imagine if your eating with your friend,
and you’re on your phone while she’s talking to you.
That’s just messed up.
Unfortunately, we sometimes do that with God—we don’t give our full attention.
And we don’t give the firstfruits, the first things that we get--
Instead, we give him whatever is leftover.
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I remember this illustration that I heard back when I was in student ministry.
I think it’s a very good one.
One time in a Bible study,
a student leader was teaching.
During the lesson,
she was eating an in-n-out burger.
And she had some leftovers left and then offered them to us.
We certainly didn’t want it,
unless someone was super hungry.
It would’ve been nice if she had gotten us a complete order of the meal instead of leftovers.
...
But yet, this is what we do with God.
We give him the leftovers.
And it’s not good.
It actually dishonors him.
Imagine if you gave your father what you didn’t need.
I mean sometimes it’s nice,
but it’s better to get him the best instead of your leftovers.
...
It dishonors God when we just give him leftovers.
He deserves the best.
He deserves it all.
He is holy.
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The priests tried pleading with God.
Israel wasn’t in a good place.
The kingdom wasn’t flourishing as it did under David or Solomon.
They were under foreign kingdoms.
So the priests would pray to God to protect them and deliver them from foreign powers.
But like, how could they even ask or expect that God would deliver them when the priests were giving him leftovers,
when they had given God leftovers.
We need to be aware of what we give to God.
It’s super important.
Look at how important it is in Malachi 1:10.
“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 offering from your hands.
This is kinda crazy.
Could you imagine God saying to the church today, close your doors because I don’t want to hear your worthless words?
But basically, that’s what’s taking place with Israel.
The sin of giving leftovers.
The sin of irreverence over what God had declared holy.
The sin of indifference.
The sin of dishonoring God.
It’s horrible.
God doesn’t want the temple to be open and have people go in and out,
just like it’s a tradition or habit.
He would prefer that the temple would close,
because the people aren’t giving their best.
Their giving leftovers.
...
Giving leftovers is a grave sin.
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God wants you to be part of his community,
not because of tradition or habit.
No,
he wants you to go to church,
to worship,
he wants you to go because you see that he is holy and because you want to honor him.
Within your heart, you know that it’s true,
and therefore you want to worship him with all you have.
God looks at your heart.
He looked at the hearts of the priests.
And we know that their hearts weren’t in the right place.
If you are giving leftovers to God, you’re not honoring God in your heart.
It’s not so much about the gift, or the offering itself.
But it’s about the heart.
God looks at your heart first.
Then at what you give.
If you don’t desire to honor God, it doesn’t matter what you give to God.
...
You must recognize that God is holy.
Yes, God is our friend.
You can always approach him.
But at the same time, God is the Almighty.
We have read several times Malachi refer to God as the LORD Almighty.
While I agree with the translation of the NIV, I do prefer the CSB’s rendition of the text.
The CSB says,
“I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle a useless fire on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Armies, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.
Lord of Armies and Lord Almighty convey the same sense: God is great!
But I like the image of the CSB, which reflects the Hebrew.
God is that Lord of the armies.
He has armies.
Yes, he is our friend,
but he is also יְהוָ֣ה צְבָאֹ֔ות — the LORD of armies.
He is the almighty.
Look at the type of God we serve.
My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty.
We don’t serve a petty God, an insecure God, a pitiful God.
No, we serve a God whose name will be great among the nations,
even if currently it seems unlikely.
From the east where the sun rises,
to the west where the sun rests,
His name will be glorified.
Whether we agree or not,
it is what will happen.
Every nation will bring the best offering—pure offering,
because they will recognize how great God is.
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Let’s read the last portion, then we’ll end
“But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty.
“When you bring injured, lame 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.
The priests of Israel had dishonored God.
They could’ve given the best to God,
but instead, they kept it for themselves, maybe sold their best sheep,
and gave the worst to God.
We have fallen to the same practice.
We give other things our best,
give the leftovers to God.
But I wonder,
if we will be joining the future by worshipping the great God who created us.
I wonder if we could enter the future right now,
by giving God the best.
Through Jesus, because he has brought the future,
we can worship God as he deserves to be worshipped.
Jesus invites us to enter a new way of living,
where previously we couldn’t care less what God had to think,
but now,
upon Jesus calling us,
we can worship God as he deserves to be worshipped.
We want God to be worshipped.
I pray that you would recognize that you have failed to worship God as you should,
but at the same time,
I pray that you would follow Jesus,
and begin a new life, where you worship and honor God,
our heavenly Father and master.
Let’s pray.
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