SERMON MANUSCRIPT
As with most OT prophets, Malachi was sent by God to confront, correct, call, and console his wayward people. As we’ve already seen in our study, Israel, willfully ignoring generations of evidence to the contrary, had begun to doubt the Lord’s care. “God doesn’t love us,” they whined. And, convinced of that lie and filled with self-pity, they stopped giving God the honour and respect he deserved. “He can have our leftovers,” they spat.
They didn’t think much of his word either, minimizing God’s covenant with them and then, predictably, their covenants with one another. “God can’t be trusted so why do we have to be trustworthy?” Israel had also become jealous of other nations, believing them to be more blessed by God than themselves. “Where’s the justice in that?” they groaned.
The people were frustrated and fatigued, immature and insecure, hard-hearted and pig-headed. Their priests weren’t teaching them, their crops weren’t feeding them, and their God, it seemed, wasn’t hearing them. So, what did they do? Among other things, they stopped giving to him. “If he won’t give us what we want, why should we give him what he wants?” And because Israel wasn’t giving, God wasn’t blessing, and the world wasn’t noticing.
FOUNDATION
So, the Lord graciously calls them back to faithfulness, highlighting their sin and offering them restoration. He begins by laying an immovable foundation, one rooted in his own character.
[3:6] There’s only one reason Israel wasn’t erased by God and it had nothing to do with their worthiness or importance. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with their holiness. No, it had everything to do with God’s faithfulness.
“For I, the Lord, do not change.” He covenanted himself to create, preserve, and use this particular people, and it’s for that reason alone that he’ll do it. A promise is only as good as the person who makes it and, here, the one who made it is the God of the universe in “whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (Jas. 1:17).
The immutability of God and the infallibility of his words are the foundation and totality of Israel’s hope. They were generationally rebellious—“from the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statues and not kept them” (1:7a). Yet, God could still say “‘O sons of Jacob,’ you won’t be ‘consumed.’ In fact, because I don’t change, ‘Return to me, and I will return to you.’”
Peasants caught committing treason against their king should fear being summoned to his presence. But Israel is invited to fellowship with the Ruler they’ve wronged, reminded of his longing for intimacy and his unmoving promise of blessing.
Brothers and sisters, because God never changes, God’s people can always change, can always return to him and find him faithful—not because we deserve it but because he’s promised it.
There is no sin you can commit that God will not cleanse if confessed. There is no blasphemy strong enough to add condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. There is no far country distant enough, no pig sty defiling enough, that our Heavenly Father stops pining for our return to him. Why? Because we’re essential to his plans? Because we’re showing real signs of progress or because we bring something unique to the table? No! It’s because he’s made promises.
CORRECTION
Because God never changes, God’s people can always change. This is the foundation on which God places Israel’s correction, a specific sin from which they must repent. But the people aren’t convinced they need to: “How shall we return?”
God answers them: “Will a man rob God? (3:8).” Robbing people is bad enough, but picking God’s pocket? That’s another level of hubris and foolishness. But that’s what Israel was doing. God says, “Yet you are robbing me!”
The people remain defiant: “How have we robbed you?” They weren’t taking anything from his house, looting his barns, or pilfering his stockpiles. “Where’s the thievery, Lord?” God clarifies: “In tithes and offerings” (3:8).
“You’re forgetting that I don’t just own the furniture in the temple. I own everything. Your flocks are my flocks. Your vineyards are my vineyards. Your money is my money. You’re holding it for me, managing it for me. And by not giving back to me the amount I’ve requested ‘You are robbing me, the whole nation of you’” (3:9).
This is the nation that had willingly received the Mosaic Law, a law that stipulated a number of specific tithes and offerings, contributions to the Lord that were used to support the priesthood, finance the nation, care for the poor, and worship God. But now they aren’t giving what they said they’d give.
Now, to be clear: God doesn’t need their money but he wants their hearts. He just knows that the two are connected, the first being an indicator of the second. As Jesus would later say, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21).
So, God tells the people through Malachi, “Stop robbing me of what I’m owed, but ‘bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so there may be food in my house’” (3:10). “Stop shortchanging me,” he says, ‘and test me now in this.’ Trust me and find me unchangingly faithful by rightly, obediently, and sacrificially bringing everything you’re supposed to bring and see ‘if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.’”
On the foundation of his unchanging character, God sets a correction for Israel: stop robbing me and start trusting me. And that’s a correction that some of us need to hear as well.
Now, we’re not Israel under the Mosaic Law. As members of the bride of Christ, we are not obligated to tithe a specific amount. But we can still rob God—of time, attention, service, and, yes, money. As Paul says, “Each [believer] must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7). If you want God to be pleased with you, give joyfully with a clear conscience.
Why does God love this? Because, while he doesn’t need our money, he wants our hearts and giving is a way we fight the perennial idols of money and self-reliance. It’s a way we declare our trust in the unchanging God who’s promised to provide for his people. It’s a way to joyfully support the work that God is doing through his church, as imperfect as she may be, knowing that we don’t give to a church, we give to the Lord through his church.
We are all to give “with liberality” (Rom. 12:8) “according to what a person has” (2 Cor. 8:12), remembering that everything belongs to him anyway. We are not giving to God part of what we own but giving back to him a portion of what he’s entrusted to us.
MOTIVATION
When you and I don’t give in these ways, when we fail to “bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,” so to speak, we are robbing God of what he’s owed. And, while that should be enough motivation on its own, sometimes hard-hearted people need more than that and, in our passage, we find God obliging.
[3:9] What exactly was this divine judgement? Verse 11 explains there was famine, pests (maybe locusts) eating their crops and vines failing to produce grapes. This shouldn’t have surprised Israel as it was all in the terms of the Mosaic Law. They were experiencing economic hardship because they were failing to pay their most important, God-honouring bill.
“But it doesn’t have to be that way,” the Lord says. “Return to me, and I will return to you. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse and I’ll make it rain blessings upon you as I promised I would.” [3:11] “This can all be turned around, prosperity can be yours, Israel, if give what you’re supposed to give, the full tithe from a willing heart.”
And the blessing the Lord is offering to his people wasn’t only for their benefit. [3:12] Judah was to be a light in a dark world, a monument to God’s power and goodness that blessed nations. “It can still be that way,” God says. “If you turn back to me, if you give to me all that I’m owed, there will be relief from discipline and blessing from heaven.” That’s divine motivation.
I WILL GIVE GOD EVERYTHING!
As you may be aware, Malachi 3 is a magnet for false teaching. Ignoring its context, these verses are often used by manipulative, greedy wolves to siphon money away from trusting people who just want to honour their Lord.
Let me be clear: God has not promised any of us wealth, even if we give generously. Might he bless that way? Sure. Might he keep us month-to-month? Sure. That’s the prerogative of an all-knowing, never-changing God who desires that his people trust him. He wants our hearts and sometimes money gets in the way.
But you know what God does promise if we give? He promises his pleasure and provision. He promises to be enough, to show us his power and glory, to shape us and keep us and use us. And the world around us—a world controlled and consumed by the love of money—will see a people, God’s people, free from that curse, liberated from that life-stifling burden. That’s great motivation.
Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). What does Jesus own? Everything. And what did he give for our sake? Everything! So, what should we be willing to give back to him? Everything. We are to “present [our] bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1). It’s all his, yet he gave it all for us, so we are to give it all for him. Be it resolved: we will give God everything!
This is a generous church family. When there has been a need, we have stepped up to meet it. Thank you and praise God. But, because we don’t pass the offering plate on the Lord’s Day, sometimes giving can be forgotten, undiscussed, or ignored. And so, even if you’re not, I’m thankful Malachi has brought it up for our consideration, correction, and affirmation.
We don’t want to be robbing God, as individuals, as families, or as a church family. So, as we close, let me be practical (and, if you’ll forgive me, a bit personal). In light of this passage, here are three steps to financial faithfulness: pray, plan, and praise.
First, pray. “Each [believer] must do just as he has purposed in his heart.” Our giving should be controlled by the Spirit and not a spreadsheet. You must seek God’s will for your resources. It is not my place to tell you how much to give—it is between you and the Lord. If he lays 50% on your heart then 10% is robbing God. If the Lord lays 1% on your heart, striving legalistically to get to 10% is disobedience. “Lord, what would you have me give?”
Patricia and I ask God to direct us to an amount that, all at once, fights the love of money and keeps our family dependant on his provision. We want to give enough that it hurts us and fights the desire of independence. Obviously, that number changes all the time, so it keeps us in prayer.
Pray. Determine in your heart what God would have you give. Then, second, plan. We plan to be in the word, to pray, to gather, to break bread, to fellowship, and to sing. If we don’t, it sometimes doesn’t happen. Why would giving be any different?
After praying, plan for it. When will you give? Every Sunday, following the description of the Corinthians?: [1 Cor. 16:1–2]. Once a month? If it’s all the same, you might consider the fact that our chapel has regular bills to pay and so regular giving might be helpful to the servants who oversee those ministries.
How will you give? We have boxes at the back, etransfers, auto withdraw, etc. There’s estate planning to consider. “Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.” You can’t take it with you but you can send it ahead. Plan how you will give.
And plan to whom will you give? There are many people and ministries worthy of aid but, I’ll be frank, if you’re not supporting the assembly of believers to which you belong, from which you are encouraged and fed and protected, that may be something to reconsider. So, pray, and plan.
Finally, praise. Remember, it’s all his anyway. He gave us everything and we’re simply giving back to God a portion of what he’s entrusted to us. When we give, we can say “Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of stewarding what’s yours. I praise you for the work you’ll do with it. I praise you for the people who will be affected by it. I praise you for the privilege of being of the household of God. I praise you for being a God who does not change but is ever-faithful. I praise you for the blessings I’m about to receive for my joyful obedience. And I praise you for the reminder that my meaner sacrifice here brings to mind, the sacrifice of Jesus: that you, God, so loved the world that you gave him.”
Be it resolved: I will give God everything because, in Christ, he’s given me everything.
Josiah has served the Oakridge Bible Chapel family as one of its elders and one of its pastoral staff members since September 2018, before which he ministered as an associate pastor to a local congregation in the Canadian prairies. Josiah's desire is to be used by God to help equip the church for ministry, both while gathered (edification) and while scattered (evangelization). He is married to Patricia, and together they have five children—Jonah, Henry, Nathaniel, Josephine, and Benjamin.
