Read Malachi 3:1-4
Malachi is an interesting book. It is prophetic and comes at the end of the Old Testament. It was likely written during the time of the Persian Empire. Remember, the Babylonians leveled Jerusalem and deported just about anyone with any skill to Babylon where they remained for 7 decades.
When the Persians came to power, they sent the Hebrew people home, with their possessions. The people returned and eventually rebuilt their temple and their city, though many took care of their own homes first.
Scrolls were read once again, and people’s hearts were changed for a time. And while idolatry may have been put to rest for the most part after the restoration of God’s Chosen People to their land; people were still not right with God. They were still missing so much in a relationship with God.
And so Malachi—perhaps the prophets actual name or perhaps a general name for one who brings Yahweh’s message and proclaims his messenger—admonished God’s people.
We are most familiar with Malachi as the book of the Bible that contains the most powerful verses on the tithe.
“Since the days of your fathers, you have turned from My statutes; you have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Hosts.
But you ask: “How can we return?”
“Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me!”
You ask: “How do we rob You?”
“By not making the payments of the tenth and the contributions. You are suffering under a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me. Bring the full tenth into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this way,” says the Lord of Hosts. “See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not ruin the produce of your land and your vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit,” says the Lord of Hosts. “Then all the nations will consider you fortunate, for you will be a delightful land,” says the Lord of Hosts.
If neglecting the tithe were the only issue, it might have been a quick fix, but we know otherwise. Blind and lame animals were brought to the Lord and sacrificed.
Unblemished seemed to be an overlooked aspect of what to offer God. God still was not first in the lives of his people.
The Lord through the prophet challenged his own people, mostly his priests, asking, “Do you think you could get away with treating your worldly masters this way?”
It seems to be the same story time and again: Return to the Lord and fall way. Return and fall away.
Thank God that we don’t do that these days! We are saved by the blood of Jesus and we respond by living the way that God wants us to. We never miss a beat. We are always on target. We rock this sin no more business.
Or maybe, we still fall short.
We know that Jesus made the perfect sacrifice. He was the unblemished Lamb. He was without sin. He became sin for us so that he might receive the punishment for our sins. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe.
The problem is that our payment plan is flawed. The only debt we should have is to love one another but even knowing that love fulfills the law—our debt if you will—we miss a payment or two from time to time. We can’t seem to get out of the sin business. Considering all that God has done for us—salvation through the blood of Christ Jesus being at the top of the list—you think that we could respond by living without sin.
You would think that we could take control of our hearts and minds and live in sinless and loving response to the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus. You would think…
But it seems that what God has done for us—made us right with him—can never be attained while living in the flesh. The old creature as Paul would describe our lot always wants his position back.
You have heard me describe this apparent dichotomy as our salvation and discipleship. Our salvation is perfect as it is a gift of God. Our discipleship takes work and is often full of mistakes, errors, and just missing the mark.
A notable American theologian, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, known best for his essay on Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, might frame this struggle in two categories which he labeled standing and state.
Before we jump on the Scofield bandwagon, realize that this man was a mess. He served in the Confederate Army twice, was discharged once and deserted once, was married twice and divorced once, served in state and federal government and resigned amidst scandal, probably connected to his heavy drinking. There may have been some jail time involved.
We are talking all of the qualifications to be a biblical scholar or not, but that is exactly what he became. He was influenced by well know saints such as Dwight L. Moody and went on to develop a biblical correspondence course, out of which came his reference Bible.
Eventually, Scofield became a Presbyterian minister. I offer him and his work this morning as a slightly different way of explaining what I have talked about for a while as salvation and discipleship. Schofield uses the terms standing and state.
Standing is what God granted to us. State is our present condition.
Let’s start with standing. Those who believe upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ are not only saved, we are children of God. And if children, then heirs. We have all this from him and in him who saved us.
We are God’s handiwork, yet sometimes we are such a mess. We still crave carnal things. There is dissension among believers. There is controversy.
God puts us in good standing with him then expects us to live up to the standing that he has given us. He lifts us out of the dust into the royal realm and expects us to live like we belong there.
But we fall short. We grow in God’s grace and we get better but we fall short. We heed counsel to regard hardship as discipline and we grow. We know that God disciplines those whom he loves and we grow.
We study to be a workman approved. We try again and again to put our Master’s words into practice; yet we fall short.
God has put us in good standing with him. He uses all of the circumstances of our lives to the good, regardless of their human intentions, but we still fall short in our efforts.
God has put us in good standing, but our state is one of brokenness. We grow but hardly enough to ever reach what is required by our standing with God. So where does that leave us?
It leaves us ready for the Refiner’s Fire. That which we cannot purge from ourselves, God does for us. He purifies us. God grants us salvation as a gift from him. He gives us good standing with him. He fixes our state of brokenness.
We press on towards the goal of living up to the standing that he has given us knowing we can’t get all the way there. It’s sort of like your reach exceeding your grasp. But we don’t give up. We run our race knowing that much of the work takes place along the way but the work begun in us will be completed by our Master himself.
We will be purified. We will be made worthy of the standing given us by God. God will finish the good work which he began in us!
Hallelujah! But if God is going to do everything anyway, why do I need to do anything now? Why not fully experience life—sin and all—and know that God will fix me later.
Paul posed this question rhetorically. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound even more?
Why would he pose such a question? Because he taught and we listened that our sin could not go beyond the reach of God’s grace.
Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.
So, if we can’t sin more than God’s grace can cover, why try so hard to live up to our standing? Why try to be the person that we are going to be anyway?
Because we have died to this world and its desires. Because that’s not who we are. We are that perfect person that God made us to be in the atoning sacrifice of his one and only Son’s blood.
That is who we are. It might be hard to imagine now as we struggle with this world so much, but that is who we are. We are in good standing with God. We long to please him.
As we celebrate the Second Sunday of Advent, we look forward to the celebration of Christmas. We look forward to the return of our Lord as King. We look forward to our redemption, and we look forward to our purification.
Malachi asks, “Who may endure the day of his coming?”
Left to our own goodness and righteousness, the answer is Nobody! Not one will endure this day.
But we answer, “By the saving grace of God that we know in the blood of Christ Jesus, we can!”
By our faith, we may stand before God and let him finish the good work that he began in us. By the grace that we have received by faith, we stand ready to be purified in the Refiner’s Fire.
Much is happening now in our discipleship. That’s a good thing. We don’t frame our lives asking, “Just how much can I get away with and not go to hell?”
We long to give ourselves to our Lord with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but our state is one of brokenness.
Much is happening now, but much more is to come as we are refined in the fire of our Master.
In Malachi’s time, the promise was that the offerings and sacrifices of the Lord’s people would once again please God. God’s people would go through what was described as the furnace of affliction but they came through and were restored.
In our time, our lives—though broken through sin—become complete by our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and our living sacrifice becomes pleasing to God.
We must believe, trust, and have faith and God will do the refining.
This is the season of Advent. We look forward to celebrating Emanuel--God with us. We look forward to his return—People get ready Jesus is coming. With his return comes our redemption and purification.
We are working hard now and are not discouraged that we fall short of the person whom God has made us. We press on towards the goal but at the same time we declare the assurance of what we know is to come.
Come Lord Jesus! We are ready. By our faith, we are ready to be refined!
Amen!
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