OAKRIDGE BIBLE CHAPEL

Be It Resolved: I Will Give God What He Deserves (Malachi 1:6–2:9)

God’s people are a privileged people. Through faith in Christ, we receive perfect redemption and eternal salvation, forgiveness and access, belonging and cleansing, mercy and hope. It is beyond amazing! Yet, because these blessings are so permanent and secure, taking them for granted is an ever-present danger. We may forget our unworthiness in receiving them, the immense price paid to secure them, and the immeasurable greatness of the One who bestows them.

Simply put, God’s people are always at risk of taking God for granted—of minimizing his power and sidelining his person. This apathetic attitude toward the Almighty profoundly affects how we live, approach, serve, address, share, praise, and anticipate him. When we fail to give God the honour he deserves, we despise his grace and insult his holiness.

SERMON MANUSCRIPT 

Please turn to Malachi 1. In their post-exilic malaise, a fatigued Israel struggled to be faithful. They struggled to be the people God wanted them to be, the nation God had chosen them to be. So, the Lord spoke to them through his prophet, saying, “Start here. If you, my people, resolve yourselves to live in these ways, doing these things, committed to these realities, you will thrive in all the ways that matter.”

We’re not Israel, but we want to thrive. We want to be the people God wants us to be, the church Christ created us to be. So, to that end, last week, we declared together, “Be it resolved: we will not doubt God’s love.” That, no matter what we’re experiencing in life, his life is sure. This morning, we’ll add another resolution: “We will give God what he deserves.”

GOD’S PEOPLE HATING GOD

Be it resolved: we will give God what he deserves. Israel, in the time of Malachi, was not. In fact, we find that God’s people, represented by their priests, were hating God. That’s what God says: “O priests who despise my name” (1:6). 

God’s “name” is an extension, representation, and encapsulation of who he is—his quality, sovereignty, and authority. It’s why we sing about it so often (have you ever noticed that?): “Your name is the highest, your name is the greatest, your name stands above them all.” “His name is wonderful.” “Nothing has the power to save but your name.” “What a beautiful name it is.” “O praise the name of the Lord our God.” “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

God’s name is a placeholder for God himself, and it’s the subject of our text. “My name will be great among the nations,” he says in verse 11, “and in every place incense is going to be offered to my name … for my name will be great among the nations”; verse 14: “and my name is feared”; 2:2 adds, “give honour to my name”; and, verse 5 describes, “awe of my name.

More specifically, God describes himself as “the great King … to be feared among the nations” (1:14) and the God who, eleven times in eighteen verses, calls himself “the Lord of hosts.” He has ultimate power and authority. He commands heaven’s armies. He is the boss, the victor, the champion. Undefeated and undisputed.

But, in Israel’s collective consciousness, God’s name had lost its lustre. They’d started to take him for granted. So much so, that the Lord had to ask for what he’s owed (1:6): “A son honours his father, and a servant his master.” These are obvious hierarchies of authority. “But what about my authority?” God says. “If I am a father [and I am the ultimate Father], where is my honour? And if I am a master [and I am the ultimate Master, “the Lord of hosts,” in fact], where is my respect?”

Rhetorical questions: he wasn’t getting either one. Instead, Israel was despising him, hating him. They asked, “How have we despised your name?” (1:6), and God tells them, pointing out four ways in which they were failing to give him what he deserved. 

First, it was an issue of priority. Israel was placing second-rate offerings upon God’s “altar,” “the table of the Lord.” They were giving animals that were “blind,” “lame and sick” (1:8), or stolen, “taken by robbery” (1:13). When they went to the temple to worship “the great King,” they brought their worst, not their best.“This calf won’t live long anyway. I’ll give it to the Lord.” 

And God challenges them on their irreverence. “‘Is it not evil?’ Another rhetorical question. You all know it is! ‘Why not offer it to your governor [your earthly ruler]? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?’ (1:8). Try giving to them what you give to me and see how that works out.”

To us, God might say, “Try giving your boss the leftovers of your time the way you do me. Will he be impressed that you just show up? Give your spouse divided attention and lukewarm affection. They should be grateful for what you give, right? Treat Canada’s laws with the air of convenience you treat my laws. They’re mere suggestions anyway, and I’m sure the police won’t mind.” 

It’s an issue of priority. When God, who is “the beginning and the end” isn’t given top billing—that which he inarguably deserves—it’s a hate crime against his name. “Is it not evil?” And he takes it seriously. [1:10] “If you’re going to give me leftovers, keep ‘em.” God didn’t need Israel’s sacrifices and he doesn’t need our attention, affection, and worship. But he does deserve them.

Second, it was an issue of expediency. “You also say, ‘My, how tiresome it is!’ And you disdainfully sniff at it,” says the Lord of hosts” (1:13). *Sniff* “So many boring acts of worship. Day after day, God wants more attention. Doesn’t he know we have other things going on? We’ve got children and chores, hobbies and friends.” *Sniff* “This is such a burden. Couldn’t he have made worship a little more convenient for us who have busy lives?”

Corporate worship every week? Okay, but it better end at 11:45. None of this noon nonsense. I got things going on! Bible reading? Prayer? Small group? Hospitality? I mean, Lord, have you seen my calendar? I’ll fit you in, trust me. I just have some other things vying for my time and sapping my energy at the moment.

It’s an issue of expediency. When God—Father, Son, and Spirit, who is “the great ‘I Am,’” is treated like an inconvenience, it’s a hate crime against his name. “Is it not evil?”

Third, it’s an issue of integrity. [1:14] Vows like this were a voluntary act of worship. However, it seems some were making them—perhaps to seem pious—and then not keeping them. 

I don’t have to promise my kids an exotic family holiday. But if I do—whether it’s to seem generous or an attempt to make up for my deficiencies elsewhere—I better keep that promise. 

Israel wasn’t and it was a heart issue. Their carelessness revealed what they thought about God: he’s easily fooled, easily appeased, and easily impressed. As long as our hearts look like they’re surrendered to him, that’s good enough. 

“Christ won’t mind my negligence to his church so long as I say I belong to one. He won’t mind if, in baptism, I promised to die to myself and live for him but then live a life of self-service. The promise itself should be worth something, right?”

It’s an issue of integrity. When God, to whom we sing “Great is thy faithfulness,” is given duplicity by the people he has purchased, it’s a hate crime against his name. “Is it not evil?”

Finally, it’s an issue of veracity. In chapter two, God addresses the priests, those in the line of Levi given the privilege of serving God in the temple. Phineas, one such descendant, “turned many back from iniquity” (2:6) with his zeal for the Lord. This genealogical line was selected by God to represent God’s people before him, to facilitate right worship, and to preserve and propagate truth. 

[2:7–9] “Priests, your job isn’t that complicated. One of your few obligations is to teach my people my ways. But you’ve done the opposite! You’ve misled Israel, polluted my truth, spat on the privilege I gave to you, and declared your disdain for my name.”

Today, no church can rightly honour God if they are not declaring the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It doesn’t matter how big they are, what their budget is, how many ministries they have, how quickly they’re growing, how impactful they seem to be, or any other worldly metric of success. A church that does not traffic in God’s truth—that does not “preserve knowledge”—hates God and despises his name.

It’s an issue of veracity. When God, who is truth, is approached with half-truths, compromise, and cultural capitulation, it’s a hate crime against his name. “Is it not evil?” 

Israel had stopped giving God what he deserved. Instead of reverence, apathy. In the place of fearful worship, fickle worship. So, in love, God sends Malachi to turn them back. 

GOD CORRECTING HIS PEOPLE

This passage describes God’s people hating God, but it also shows God correcting his people. He doesn’t leave them in their pathetic state but reaches out to restore their relationship and to cause them to thrive in his will. “Make me your priority, not a matter of expediency. Come to me with integrity and cherish veracity. Be it resolved: give me what I deserve!”

This is important because there are blessings and curses in the present. “But now will you not entreat God’s favour, that he may be gracious to us?” (1:9). Do you want God’s blessed attention? Then approach him rightly, and “he will receive you kindly!”

But if God’s people continue in such irreverence, God’s clear: “I am not pleased with you … nor will I accept an offering from you” (1:10). Such treatment doesn’t dissolve the relationship, but it does strain and stunt it, like harsh language doesn’t dissolve a marriage but certainly changes its temperature.

Referring to the Mosaic law, God says that if the priests don’t get their act together, “then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings” (2:2). [2:3] Graphic! Disgraceful!

If we give God what he deserves, there are blessings available today—peace, acceptance, maturity, guidance, unity, and joy. But if we don’t, if we play at our worship forgetting who it is we’re approaching, those things can go away. And shame on us. 

More than blessings and curses in the present, however, there’s also honour and exaltation in the future. [1:11] “It isn’t right now, but there is coming a time when my name will be given every honour it’s owed by every nation in every way, every minute of every day. It’s going to happen. So why not practice now? You will give me what I deserve one day, so start this day.”

And why would we wait, brother and sisters? We know who our God is, don’t we? We know the greatness of his name, what he’s like, what he’s done, and what he’s promised. We know his supremacy, power, grace, and love. Why would we act like we hate him? Why trivialize his praise, his service, and his people? 

Why do we think we can just fit him in when it’s most convenient rather than building our lives—our vacations, finances, hobbies, family calendars, retirements, and friendships—around him? Why do we feel the temptation to talk a big Christian game but only give our God and his people leftovers and excesses? Why do we dabble in half-truths, drinking deeply from the cesspool of online content and half-baked secular thought leaders rather than running to him for truth, defending his truth, celebrating his truth?

We’re “to present [our] bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God” (Rom 12:1)? It’s a big ask until we remember that God gave himself to save us, so giving our saved selves back to him isn’t that steep. What are we waiting for? What’s holding us back? Who do we think we are? Who do we think God is?

Do we not know that blessings are available today and inevitable exaltation is coming in the future, when the whole world will declare “Crown him with many crowns!” “Behold our God, seated on his throne!”? 

Be it resolved: we will give God what he deserves, not just then but now. And, when we do, as individuals and as an assembly, we will experience his favour, his delight, his power, and his pleasure. Let’s be that people, a people determined not to doubt God’s love and to give God everything he deserves. Let’s ask for his help to do that as we close.

  



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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.

Josiah Boyd

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