God's Love for the Rebellious

[Read Malachi 1:1-14]

I’m sure many of you have had this experience before when interacting with children—especially when disciplining children. You come out into the kitchen and you find a mess and say, “Alright, who made the mess in the kitchen?” What’s the immediate response? “I didn’t do it!” Or when you are talking to your children, correcting them for fighting with their sibling, what’s the immediate, gut reaction for the child? “I didn’t do anything wrong!” 

There’s this gut reaction and assumption of innocence deep down in our hearts and souls. And it’s not just in children. It’s there in us as adults as well. We all have a natural tendency to think we are in the right and that we haven’t done anything wrong. What’s your gut reaction when someone at work attempts to correct you for handling a situation improperly? I would guess, there’s something inside you that wants to say, “I didn’t do anything wrong. It was the other person that messed things up!” Or when someone approaches you to correct a certain aspect of your life, there’s this gut reaction inside you that wants to say, “Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to correct me like this? I haven’t done anything wrong! You are in the wrong for trying to correct me!” 

This attitude only increases and gets stronger when we find ourselves in times of stress or difficulty. When we are tired and anxious and burned out, we also have a natural tendency to turn in on ourselves and become selfish. It’s somewhat of a survival instinct—although it doesn’t actually help with survival. So, because we’re tired and anxious and burned out, we tell ourselves, “I just need to focus on me for a while. I just need to take care of myself. I just need to put myself first.” And when we do that—when we start becoming more selfish and self-focused—we put ourselves in a more difficult place to receive correction and we have a higher tendency to think we’re the ones who are right and everyone else is wrong. It’s because we’ve placed ourselves in the position of a victim. So, when someone attempts to correct us, we immediately react with something like, “You don’t know what I’m going through. You don’t understand my situation. You have such a pretty, peppy life that you could never understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. So, why don’t you just head back to your pretty little life and leave me alone. I’m not doing anything wrong!” 

This is basically what’s happening in this conversation between God and his people. This interaction is happening after God’s people have been delivered from exile in Babylon. They had left Babylon, rebuilt the temple(kinda) in Jerusalem, rebuild the walls around Jerusalem, and then got caught up doing their own thing. The book of Haggai is about God’s people getting distracted from their calling to finish rebuilding the temple. Instead of finishing the temple, they became focused on finishing their own houses and growing their own businesses. 

Eventually, they finished the temple, but things didn’t go the way they thought they would go. They had hoped that once they finished the temple the Messianic age would come and it would be all sunshine and roses, but it didn’t work out that way. So, they waited and waited and waited, but it still didn’t come. One commentator points to Isaiah to describe the people’s attitudes and feelings during this time. It reads, “Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men. We all growl like bears; we moan and moan like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.” (Isaiah 59:9–11, ESV). They are tired and weary and worn out. They hope for light and salvation but it seems far from them. They are tired and hopeless. 

So, what typically happens when people become tired and hopeless? They turn in on themselves. They pay more attention to trying to take care of their own needs and desires and wants. They stop caring about outside opinions and only care about their own opinion and attitudes. They do whatever they want. They become selfish and self-focused. They put themselves in the position of the victim and are not easily corrected—even if that correction is coming from their God. 

This is why God comes to them saying, “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’” (Malachi 1:6, ESV). Do you catch that? God comes to his people—and the priests—and points out that they have not been honoring him. They haven’t honored him as their Father and they haven’t honored him as their Master/Lord. They have become focused on themselves and only cared about themselves and no longer honor and respect and fear God the way he deserves. Again, this is because they’ve placed themselves in the position of the victim and have become selfish and self-focused. And this is also why they respond the way they do, “How have we despised your name?” (Malachi 1:6, ESV). 

Did you catch that? This is written to show us that this isn’t a genuine question. They are not genuinely inquiring how they’ve despised God’s name. No way. This question is written with an expected answer of “No”—showing that they didn’t think they were despising God’s name. So, God comes to them and says, “You’ve become selfish and self-focused and are despising my name” and their response is, “No we haven’t!” That’s the epitome of a victim mentality that is selfish and self-focused. 

And it only proves God’s point. If they truly honored and feared God the way he deserved—they would not question his rebuke. If they honored him like a Father and feared him like a Master, they wouldn’t mouth off to him when he comes to correct them. They would listen and submit and repent. But instead, they don’t honor or fear him. They question everything he says in this passage. 

It’s this selfishness and self-focus that has blinded them and hardened their heart. Since they have turned their eyes from God and onto themselves, they are completely blind to the ways they are dishonoring God and their hearts have become hardened to his rebuke. They actually think they are honoring God, but they’re not. They actually think they are living the life God has called them to live, but their not. 

That’s a pretty scary reality, isn’t it? If it’s not, it should be. Each of us needs to be keenly aware of how easily we are blinded to the reality of our rebellion. Every one of us must know how easy it is for our hearts to be hardened in sin and for our eyes to be blinded. We must not pretend like we have this all figured out and have it all under control. Rather, we must be humble, realizing that we can easily fall into patterns of living and worshiping that dishonor God and not even recognize it. We can easily fall into patterns that harden our hearts to God’s correction and rebuke and not realize it. That’s exactly what happened with Israel in this passage. 

This is why God begins to show them the ways they have dishonored him. He’s slowly working on cracking open their hard hearts and opening their blinded eyes. He begins powerfully by saying, ““I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?”” (Malachi 1:2, ESV). Isn’t that a slap in the face? God comes to his people and reminds them of his love for them. Not only does he remind them of his current love for them, but also his past love for them. That’s why it says, “I HAVE loved you,” because it’s pointing to God’s love for his people in the past. It’s God’s reminder to them that he loved them when he chose Abraham, he loved them when he chose Jacob/Israel, he loved them when he protected them in Egypt, he loved them when he delivered them from Egypt, he loved them when he brought them into the Promised Land, he loved them when he sent them off and protected them in the exile, he loved them when he brought them back out of exile, and he continues to love them even when they have become so self-focused and selfish and blind and hard-hearted that they can’t even see his love. He loved them in the past and he continues to love them in their rebellion. Yet, they still sneer at him and scoff and say, “How have you loved us?” God comes to them and reminds them that he loves them as a Father, and they reject/question his love for them.

So he comes to them as a master and says, “By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’” (Malachi 1:7, ESV). He comes to them as the Lord who must be worshiped by his people, but he tells them that they have polluted his worship. And more than that, this is saying that they’ve continually polluted his worship. This isn’t just a one-time mistake. It has become part of their lives and lifestyle to pollute God’s worship. They are doing it all the time. And they respond to God, “We haven’t polluted you or your worship!” 

So, he goes on to explain by saying, “By saying that the LORD’s table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil?” (Malachi 1:7–8, ESV). They were polluting the worship of God by bringing terrible offerings to God. Instead of bringing the best of their herd, they were bringing the worst of their herd. They were bringing the animals they were already going to get rid of. Again, it shows that they had become selfish and self-focused, and hard-hearted. They were not worshiping God because they loved it, or worshiping God because they believed he was worthy. They were just going through the motions, doing the bare minimum—if that—that was required to still call themselves God’s people. They were so focused on themselves and their “problems” that they stopped focusing on God and stopped honoring God, and by doing this, they polluted the worship of God. 

And God brings a stronger accusation to them that connects with last week’s sermon, saying, “Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the LORD of hosts.” (Malachi 1:8, ESV). He’s saying, “You would never present these weak and terrible sacrifices to your leaders. That would never cross your mind. You would never bring them a maimed lamb and expect that to give you favor in their sight. You care more about their opinion and their favor and their honor than you do about the glory and honor of your God!” 

And then, God says something that should stop us in our tracks. He says, “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the LORD of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand.” (Malachi 1:10, ESV). That’s really strong language. God says that he wishes they would shut the doors of the temple and stop pretending to worship him. That would be better than these hypocritical, fake, dishonoring things that they are doing. Every time they come to “worship” they are making things worse and not better. This is one of those instances when something is not better than nothing. God says he would rather have no worship than fake, dishonoring, and polluted worship. One commentator says, “It is better to be speechless than to blaspheme. It is preferable to experience the agony of being far away from God than to deceive oneself by assuming that God will listen to the appeals of a hypocrite.” (Verhoef, 220). 

God goes on by addressing something else his people were saying. We read, “But you say, ‘What a weariness this is,’ and you snort at it, says the LORD of hosts.” (Malachi 1:13, ESV). This is such an incredible statement. As God comes to them in this rebuke and correction about dishonoring him and polluting his worship, they respond by saying, “But it’s so hard! It’s exhausting. It’s difficult. It’s wearing us out. Can’t you just give us a break?” and they snort at it—mocking God’s demands for worship. And what makes that statement even more incredible is that the word “weariness” is the same word to describe their experience in Egypt, in the wilderness, and Babylon. So, they’re comparing their worship of God to the times they spent in exile, saying, “It feels kinda like that!” 

Those are the moments as a parent when you just need to take a step back and breathe a bit before you speak, right? I mean, you want to respond to your child by saying, “Are you kidding me right now? I’ve been working my butt off all week trying to keep this family in order, trying to keep our house clean, trying to get you to the places you need to be, and you’re going to tell me it’s ‘too hard’ to put a dish in the dishwasher? Are you kidding me right now?” And to be completely accurate, God has way more on Israel than we do on our kids. I mean, God has LITERALLY given them everything—like bodies and breath and the sacrifices he’s asking from them. So, they need to shut their mouths and stop talking about how “hard” all of this is. They don’t know hard. And eventually, God is going to say to them, “You have wearied me!!!” 

And throughout this entire interaction with God’s people, there has been an underlying statement from God that we could place in the form of a question. It’s a question that has come out of every parent’s mouth at some point in their parenting journey, “Who do you think you are talking to? What makes you think you can talk to me like that?” And to bring this into the way God is speaking to his people, he’s saying, “Who do you think you are serving? Who do you think you’re worshiping?” He answers the question himself saying, “For I am a great King, says the LORD of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.” (Malachi 1:14, ESV). He reminds Israel that he is a great King and he is the Lord of hosts. Not only is he worthy of all their worship and all their attention and all their devotion, but he WILL be worshiped. It’s not a question of IF God will be worshiped. He will be worshiped. The question is WHO will worship him? 

That’s why he says, “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.” (Malachi 1:11, ESV). He’s telling Israel that if they will continue to reject him and dishonor him and pollute his worship and complain about how “hard” it is, he will go to the nations and they will worship him. His name WILL be great among the nations and throughout the world people will offer PURE worship to him.

And even at the beginning, after reminding them of the ways he has loved them throughout history, he says, “Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the LORD beyond the border of Israel!”” (Malachi 1:5, ESV). God is telling them that eventually, they will worship him rightly too. Eventually, they will see that the Lord is great. And, what is powerful about this statement is that it points to something we see throughout the New Testament—especially with the Apostle Paul’s ministry. What will make Israel worship their God rightly again? They will see that God’s name is being made great beyond the borders of Israel and then they will worship him rightly. That’s why the Apostle Paul said that he would continue his ministry to the Gentiles so that he would make Israel jealous and turn back to God and worship him rightly. 

Either way, God is reminding his people that he is not a God to be mocked and taken lightly. He is not a God to take second place in their lives. He is not a God that is willing to get the leftovers of their lives. He’s not a God that is willing to be treated like a genie in a bottle. He’s not a God who is willing to be set aside while people “take time for themselves.” No. He is a great King and the Lord of Hosts and our Master and our Father and we better treat him that way and serve him that way and worship him that way. 

Now, we’re going through this book of Malachi during the season of Lent. Historically, Lent is a season of preparing our hearts for celebrating Jesus’ death and resurrection. One of the ways we prepare our hearts for the death and resurrection of Jesus is to have repentant hearts that are ready to receive the death and resurrection of Jesus. That’s why Ash Wednesday is marked in some church traditions, as a way of putting ash on our foreheads to remind us to live our lives in sackcloth and ashes—to live lives of repentance. 

This book will be a good opportunity for us to reflect and repent on how we’ve been living and serving and worshiping our God. We don’t go through this book so that we’re beat up and bruised, but so that our hearts would be softened and ready to hear God’s correction and rebuke in our lives, so that we wouldn’t immediately respond by saying, “That’s not me. I’m fine” but rather would say, “Lord, correct me and guide me. Open my eyes to see where I’ve fallen short. Soften my heart to receive your correction. Fill me with the Spirit so that I would walk in your ways.” 

So this morning, this passage from God’s Word gives us an opportunity to evaluate our lives and ask some tough questions. How have we dishonored God with our lives? Maybe we haven’t done it intentionally, maybe we’ve just gotten distracted and lost, or maybe we’ve just become too focused on ourselves, but how have we dishonored God? Have we been treating God as if he is secondary in our lives? Or How have we been taking worshiping him lightly? Have we been giving God the leftovers of our lives? Have we been giving God blind and lame and diseased offerings? Have we been acting like “it’s a such burden” to follow him and worship him? Ultimately, have we been acting like he’s not God and treating him as if he’s not God and serving him as if he’s not God or worshiping him as if he’s not God?

Don’t try to raise your guard and try to justify yourself. Don’t allow yourself to immediately say in your heart and soul, “I’m not doing any of these things.” Open your eyes and your heart to hear this correction and let it stick. Then, come to God for forgiveness and cleansing, and renewal because He’s the God who loves you and has loved you in the past, and will continue to love you in the future. So, don’t try to justify your sin and failure, and don’t try to pretend like it’s not there. Admit it. Repent from it. Bring it to him. Be cleansed. Be forgiven. Be renewed in your heart and soul. Then go out living and serving and worshiping him as our Father who loves us and as the King of Kings who deserves all glory and honor and praise.