Who We Are - Sermon, Sunday, July 6th, 2003

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Malachi 1:1-2, 6-11 as follows —
"The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi. "I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?' . . . "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 place 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 sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled 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. É"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. 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."

He knew that he had not been the best of husbands, far from it, in fact. But for 25 years his wife had been faithful to him, stood by him, encouraged him, forgiven him; most of all, she had just plain loved him with a love he knew he did not deserve. And he wanted to show her just how much he loved and appreciated her. He saved up for a couple of years, and promised her that for their anniversary, he would take her on a two-week cruise wherever in the world she wanted to go. So she picked a place, and for months she looked forward to that second honeymoon, that special time together. But then, a couple months before their anniversary, he came home and announced a slight change of plans. Of the $8000 he had saved up for their cruise, he had just spent $7500 — on a new snowmachine for himself. But, he assured her, he still planned a special outing; he'd booked them on a two-day fishing trip out of Homer.

I don't know anybody who actually did this, just in case you're wondering. But the point is, would that wife question her husband's love for her? Might she be seriously unhappy with him? Do you think she'd be disappointed and deeply hurt by what he did? Of course she would, because in our human relationships, we have certain expectations. We expect that where there is love, it will be demonstrated in real and unselfish ways; where there's gratitude, it will show in the things a person does for the other person.

Does God expect any less in our relationship with him? The LORD who loves us with a fathomless and eternal and steadfast love — does he wish to be loved in return? You know he does! The God who graciously gives us all things, from the greatest to the least, from eternal life to our daily bread — does he expect us to be grateful to him and show it? You know that he does! God our Father, our Maker, Provider, Preserver, Protector ... God our Savior, our Redeemer, Friend and Forgiver ... God our Lover surely wants us to respond to his love. How?

WITH A LOVE THAT HONORS HIS NAME.

That — nothing more but also nothing less — is what the LORD has always wanted, as we see in this first chapter of Malachi. He had every reason to expect love from his people because, as he reminds them, "I have loved you." "I have loved you," says the LORD; this is the "I AM." This is the God of unchanging grace and love and mercy and forgiveness, whose NAME means all of that and more. Generation after generation, the LORD had steadfastly loved the children of Israel, this tiny segment of the human race that he had formed and set apart for his purposes. That love had never ceased, in spite of all their unfaithfulness. Now, in his last communication with them in the Old Testament, he pours out his heart one more time: "I have loved you!"

What does he get in return? "How have you loved us? Where's the evidence of that? What have you ever done for us?" Doesn't that tell you right off the bat what the LORD is dealing with? People who are blind to his blessings, cold to his grace, unresponsive to his love. They challenge his profession of love for them and that sets the tone for this book. In it, Malachi describes a debate between a gracious God and downright ungrateful people, and this Word of God has some thought-provoking implications for God's people 2400 years later.

The LORD took a good look at those folks, and what he saw was not pretty. Oh, in some ways things were better after the return from Babylon. What the Jews had gone through — defeat, destruction, deportation, 70 years of exile — had pounded out of them their biggest sin, gross idolatry. After the Exile, the flagrant worship of false gods was a thing of the past. But now, with the city and the Temple rebuilt and things back to normal, a different but equally lethal sin had taken over. They no longer worshiped idols; now they just worshiped SELF. Self-love, self-indulgence and self-righteousness would be the chief sins of God's people for the next 400 years, right up to the time when Jesus arrived on the scene.

That doesn't mean the Jews were not religious people; actually, they were extremely "religious." But it was a religion that was only skin-deep. The LORD looked at them with his X-ray vision and what did he see? It was easier to say what he did not see! "If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the fear due me?" He could not find in their hearts the basic honor a son naturally owes his father nor even the fear a servant has for his master. Notice, he didn't even bother asking, "Where's the love you owe me?"

All he can do is level some complaints, and he begins with the priests: "You are despising my name!" They're supposed to be the spiritual leaders, examples, teachers, right? But they are treating the LORD, his name, his Word with contempt. "How are we doing that?" they demand. He says, "You place defiled food on my altar!" And they say, "What are you talking about?" although they know doggone well what he's talking about. They are in charge of the offerings which God required in his Old Testament Law and they know what he demands: sacrifices he describs as "best, firstfruits, without defect, unblemished." Yet the people are bringing blind, crippled, diseased animals, and the priests are telling them, "That's good enough." But the LORD says, "Is that not WRONG? You wouldn't dare give a gift like that to your governor, yet that's what you give me! You offer to my Name the worst, the last fruits, the damaged, the unwanted!"

See, he looked for it but couldn't find it. From sinful people to whom he had shown unfailing and undeserved mercy and grace, he expected nothing more, and nothing less, than love. He had every right to expect that they would love him and prove it by honoring his name. That their worship would not just be skin-deep, a self-satisfied going-through-the-motions. That they would place on his altar offerings that were true tokens of their love. That they would honor the LORD with the first and the best of what he had given them. What he was getting was anything but the love that honors his name. But you know what? The LORD God has ways of getting what he deserves, if not from them, then from somebody else.

Well, you know things must be awfully bad when the LORD says to his people, "I wish you'd stop worshiping me altogether. Close up the Temple! Just turn out the lights and lock the doors!" That's what he said to them and in case they still didn't get it, "I am not pleased with you." The LORD Almighty was not pleased with his people. Their offerings weren't right because their hearts weren't right. They despised his name. They were stubbornly blind to his blessings. They remained cold to his grace and responded not at all to his love. They knew all that the LORD had done for them in the past. They knew his promises of a Savior and salvation, of forgiveness and life, but they could not have cared less. They couldn't have cared less, and their worship and their offerings proved it. So, "Would somebody please just turn out the lights and lock the doors?"

However, that does not mean that he was giving up on having people love him and honor his name. Just listen to the next verse: "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." The Jews were despising his name, but his name would be honored by others. See what I mean? The LORD has ways of getting what he deserves, if not from these people then from somebody else. His love will produce a fitting response!

Dear friends, today his name is "great among the nations," and you know what name and whose name that is. It's the name of Jesus Christ, who is the "I AM," the Son of God, that LORD of unfailing grace. Because of that name and what's behind it — who he is and what he did for us — we, admittedly sinful people, are numbered among those who do not have to hear God say, "I am not pleased with you." What we hear again and again is the Word of God, his Good News Word, telling us, "I am pleased with you! Not because of what you've done, but because of Jesus!" Through his Son, the sinless Substitute for every sinner, through that Righteous One who paid the price for the unrighteous ones, God is pleased with us. He has justified us. We know his grace, his love for us in Christ.

And we are pleased, are we not, to answer his love with a love that honors his name. Pleased to answer it with worship that is sincere, not merely skin-deep. Pleased to answer it with offerings that are real sacrifices that prove the sincerity of our love, as Paul wrote (2 Co 8). Pleased to answer it with gifts, offerings that are in reality the first and the best of what our God has given us. Oh, I know, we all struggle with selfishness and materialism, so deeply ingrained. We have to confess that we have so often thought of ourselves first and our LORD some time later. We have to confess that we have at times brought to him offerings that are blind, crippled or diseased — the last-fruits, the leftovers, the worst, the unwanted.

Yet even such poor love on our part has not removed us from God's grace. In repentance and faith, we are still standing as God's saints in Christ, among those to whom Paul said: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." The God of all grace repeatedly tells us, "I am pleased with you, for Jesus' sake! I have given you life, eternal life, in his name. I have forgiven all your sins and I do forgive all your sins and I always will forgive all your sins. I have loved you and I still love you and I alway will love you!"

And to that we respond, do we not, with a love that honors his name!

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