Minor Prophets: Malachi

Malachi: Does it matter how I worship God?

Introduction:

This book is divided six disputes between God and his people. All of the disputes center around the theme of proper worship. They people may or may not have realized that worship was the issue at hand but God saw it that way. In fact I would venture to say due to the rhetorical devices used by God that the people felt somewhat blinded-sided by these accusations. Below are the six disputes broken up by verses. We will not be going through them in order as they are written in chiastic structure so the first section we’ll discuss is dispute 3+4, then 2+5 and finally 1+6.

1)      1:2-5

2)      1:6 – 2:9

3)      2:10 – 16

4)      2:17 – 3:5

5)      3:6-12

6)      3:13 – 4:3

Worship of God involves how we treat other people:

This section is taken from the third and fourth disputes. The first thing we can learn from Malachi is that our worship of God is connected to how we treat other people. Many people think religion or spirituality is our deeply private and inner-most feelings and thoughts about God or ourselves. However this stands in opposition to what the scripture teaches. I won’t toss out any personal aspect of it, it is indeed very personal but it is not merely personal.

Forming and keeping our families - Malachi 2:10-16

The Israelites did not properly worship God with their marriages.

1)      God’s people were marrying those who did not worship the Lord (11).

2)      God’s people were acting faithlessly in their marriages and getting divorces (16).

True worship of God involves honoring God with our families and commitments.

Acting Justly Toward Our Neighbors - Malachi 2:17-3:5

God accuses the Israelites of violating his established justice with their neighbors. Some are engaged in sorcery, adultery, perjury while others oppress the laborers and widows and other still deprive aliens of justice.

So there are those who are simply committing injustice but there is more to it than that. There are also people who are indifferent to justice. Wanna guess what distinction God makes between committing injustice and being indifferent to justice? Little to none is the answer. If you stand in the way of justice or do not care for the victims of injustice then you are indirectly committing an act of injustice. True worship of God involves acting justly towards those around us.

Worship of God involves what we do with ourselves:

This section is taken from the second and fifth disputes.

Giving our Best – Malachi 1:6-2:9

Here we find that the people had indeed been bringing their tithes and offerings to God. So on the surface at least they appear to be righteous and spiritually aligned. But that is not how God saw it, God saw them bringing whatever they could spare when he asks for their best. In this passage (1:13) God calls out the priests for allowing blemished and less than perfect offerings. Why would they do that? Probably because they thought no one would notice, but they were wrong because God noticed. God is (or is supposed to be) the recipient of these offerings, if you don’t think he’s paying attention than what (or who) is the offering actually for? Don’t try to impress others with your offering to God; offerings to God are for God.

Giving our All – Malachi 3:6-12

There are two things required in giving our all to God (at least as it’s meant in this passage). First, by all I mean your whole life. Your offering is not the only part of your life you give to God. Many of us try that though. We think we can partition off part of our time and money and give it to God and that will appease him. Would that work in a marriage? Spending an hour a week with the person and giving them some leftover money? Because marriage is the way God describes his relationship to us in multiple places.

Secondly we need to get in touch with the true God. God reveals himself in scripture and provides us with objective truth about his nature and character. We must seek to know this God and not some God of our culture and times or God of our personal desires or God of what some guy on TV said God is. For example if I said that I know Tom Cruise personally someone might question me about that. If I then said Tom Cruise has blonde hair you would certainly doubt me. What if I then proceeded to say, “Well that’s what Tom Cruise is like for me”? Would you conclude that I really know the real Tom Cruise? What if I seemed really earnest and sincere in my belief? Similarly, if someone says they know God but don’t live, act and think like they know the one true God then it is reasonable to doubt their belief. However I’m not giving this lesson for you to analyze other people but yourself. If you say you know the one true and living God how does it appear in your life?

Giving your all means giving every aspect of your life to the one true God.

Worship of God involves how we approach God:

Understanding God – Malachi 1:1-5

This really stems from the last thing we talked about. Getting to know the true God and understanding Him. We cannot simply project a random image into the sky and worship it, we must get in touch with the one true God.

Fearing God – Malachi 3:13-4:3

This explains our need for true reverence for God. Francis Chan believes that these passages about fearing God are not merely about reverence and I would have to concur but they are no less than that. Part of worshipping God is putting him in his proper place and ourselves in our proper place. The Pharisee and the Tax Collector that Jesus taught about show the contrast in those who fear and do not fear. Worshipping God with fear means not doing so with disrespect, distrust or arrogance.

Hoping in God – Malachi 4:4-6

Last but not least our worship of God should convey the hope we have in God. Notice that the book (and the Old Testament) ends with the phrase “or else”, it also begins that way back in the Garden of Eden. There are remarkable things in these last verses. God also calls his people to reflect on the Moses and Elijah, these same two figures are present at the transfiguration in the Gospels. But I digress… ultimately our hope is in God. We hope in Him because we trust in him and we trust because he has revealed himself to be good.

Conclusion, Jesus & the Gospel

Clearly in this last book of the Old Testament it showed that God cares deeply about how he’s worshipped. Did all of this end on page later in the New Testament? Does God still care? Do we act like he still cares? How do you worship? Do you just sing songs and stay awake through a sermon? Do you even do that much?

Ultimately I believe God is most glorified in the proclamation of His gospel. When His one, true, authentic and objective gospel is presented he receives all the glory. There is no room for us to boast. This is why I am so personally insistent on churches proclaiming the gospel every time they gather.

How is the gospel present in Malachi? How isn’t it? The simplest explanation would be to go to the very beginning where God shows that he has loved and gifted the people with mercy and grace before they did their actions and he continues to do it in spite of their disobedience and half-heartedness. This is the good news, God loves first. He loves, gives, sacrifices and pours out mercy and grace while we are still sinners!

How is Jesus foreshadowed here? Quite simply we need a better priest. Jesus, according to Hebrews, is our ultimate high priest. He brings proper offering to God on our behalf and we receive the blessing. Not only do the Jewish people receive a better high priest but chapter 1 verse 5 foreshadows that God will redeem people of all nations (beyond the border of Israel).