TEXT: Malachi 2:1-9 TITLE: Return to Me In Your Influence ILLUSTRATION A week ago yesterday we had the memorial service for Bob Estill. It was one of the most extraordinarily uplifting funerals I ve ever been part of. What amazed me was the number of young people who attended. That s not typically the case. But Bob wasn t a typical guy. He was a godly husband, father and grandfather, but for 50 years he invested his life in young people through the student ministry of our church. One of Bob s good friends, Dan Reed, spoke at the service and asked the young people to stand who had been touched by Bob s life. Scores of young adults stood to say Bob was used by God to shape my life. Bob was just a regular guy who owned a business and then directed security at a steel plant for many years just a regular guy whom God used to lead others upward. Open your Bibles to the book of Malachi. God sent His messenger Malachi to His people who had slumped into complacency and apathy. The message was, Return to Me and I will return to you. It was a message for the people but it was directed first and foremost to the priest those who had been called by God to lead others upward. We saw last week how instead of leading people to truly worship God, the priests were half-hearted in their worship and the offering of pitiful sacrifices. And Almighty God holds them accountable. Read Malachi 2:1-4. So the Lord rebuked them. They must listen up and take it to heart. The priests had been called by God to give honor to the name of the Lord and to lead others to do the same. This was their calling from God, but they had made a mockery of the name of God and the worship of God. And in v.2 if they didn t repent the Lord promised to send a curse on them. God s blessings would be removed from their lives. ILLUSTRATION We don t hear much of that word curse these days. But since the Chicago Cubs made it to the World Series people have been talking about The Curse of the Billy Goat. This goes back to 1945 when a man named Billy Sianis brought his goat to see the Cubs play in the fourth game of the World Series. Well, the goat smelled so bad they threw Mr. Sianis and his goat out of the ballpark. He reportedly said, Them Cubs, they ain t going to win no more. That was in 1945 and the Cubs haven t been back to the World Series until this year, and it s not going well for them so far. Well that s pure superstition, and what we see on the pages of Scripture is not superstition. Because the priests had been unfaithful, v.3 describes how they would be horribly disgraced and removed from their place. Why? The Lord had a special covenant or agreement with these priests: Malachi 2:4 - And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so that my covenant with Levi may continue, says the LORD Almighty. This goes all the way back to the time of Moses when the Levites were set apart to live as priests among the people of God and to lead them upward. They would be the embodiment of what it meant to be holy. They offered sacrifices for the sins of the people, prayed for them and taught them the
Law of the Lord. They represented people before God and God before the people. They brought people to God and God to people. And this was a covenant that God made with the tribe of Levi. In few moments when we take the Lord s Supper we ll see another covenant God enacted. Now let me remind you that we no longer need priests to serve as the go-between between us and God. Jesus became that for us. 1 Timothy 2:5 - For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, But now as believers we are all priests before God. Through Christ we can go directly before God. 1 Peter 2:5 - You are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. But we also have a priestly ministry. We help bring people to God and God to people. 1 Peter 2:9 - But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. In the OT priests were a group of holy people who lived among the Israelites as a reminder to the people of God of what it means to be holy. But as NT believers we are holy people who live among the people of the world with a special influence. ONSCREEN - We are called by God to bring others to God and God to others. Now as I have lived with this passage over the past week I have felt the weight of my responsibility as a pastor to do this. And that is certainly an important application for this passage. But it s more than that. You, as a follow of Jesus are called to do the same to lead others upward. So how do we do that? 1. LIVE IN THE WORSHIP OF GOD (v.5) Malachi 2:5 - My covenant was with him (Levi), a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. Malachi piles word upon word here to drive home the awesomeness of the ministry of people who lead others upward. In the NIV reverence is sense of deep respect for the greatness of another. The next word revered means essentially the same thing, but maybe with a sense of fear. That s how seriously we are to take the name of God. It says they stood in awe of the name of the Lord. That means to be shattered or broken into pieces. God s gracious gift of life and peace (salvation) is intended to produce what Jerry Bridges defines as an indefinable mixture of reverence, fear,
pleasure, joy and awe that should fill a worshipper s heart Do you have that high and holy view of God? That s where it starts. But also we must 2. LIVE IN THE WORD OF GOD (v.6a) Malachi 2:6a - True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. The word instruction is the Hebrew word Torah. Have you heard that word? It s Jewish title given to the first five books of the Bible, sometimes called the Law of Moses. But here in v.6 it refers to the written revelation of God that became the instruction given by the priests to the people. There s more in v.7 Malachi 2:7 - For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty. EXAMPLE: Remember that Malachi came on the scene during the days of the great leader Nehemiah, who led the efforts to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem. About twelve years before Malachi began to prophesy, after the walls of the city had been completed, they had a massive gathering in Jerusalem where the people appeared before the Lord. Nehemiah 8 records that they called for the priest Ezra to bring the Book of the Law of Moses (the Torah) and to read it before the people. And from a high platform Ezra read from the Law of the Lord for a half a day while people stood attentively listening. (How would that go over today?) As a result the people bowed down and worshipped the Lord as they were confronted with the Law of the Lord. Then the Levites (priests who are descendants of Levi just like the ones in Malachi s day) moved out among the people and also read from the Law of the Lord, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read. And the people were broken as they heard the Word of the Lord. And the priests encouraged them. So the question has to be asked: What happened in a span of 12 years or so that the priests no longer were serious about the Word of God? Did they just grow complacent? How about your love for the Word as a follower of Jesus? John 8:31-32 - Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Are you living in the Word of God and is the Word of God living in you? Are you influencing others with the Word of God? We encourage each other with the Word of God. Husbands and dads, you should be this kind of priest for your family. If we are to lead others upward we must live in the worship of God and in the Word of God, but also we must 3. LIVE IN THE WILL OF GOD (v.6b)
Malachi 2:6b - He walked with me in peace and uprightness So people who lead others upward are not just those who teach the truth they live it. James 1:22 says to not merely listen to the Word; do what it says! The Lord said of Levi, He walked with Me in peace and uprightness. To walk with God means to live my life in step with the will of God. That would mean to walk in peace and uprightness. That word peace is the beautiful word shalom, which is an OT word for what the wholeness that comes with salvation. Uprightness means that they treated people rightly. ILLUSTRATION Years ago when we lived in New Mexico one of the men of our church told me of an experience he had that really awakened him to this truth. He and his young family lived on a farm where they had some milk cows and chickens that needed to be tended to. One morning it had rained so my friend pulled on his boots and began to carefully stride across the muddy barnyard to take care of the animals, leaving behind deep boot prints in the mud. He turned to notice that his little girl had followed him into the barnyard and was trying as hard as he could to step in her daddy s boot prints. My friend said that the sight of his little girl trying to follow in his steps was a stark reminder to him that he better be leaving the right kind of boot prints for her to follow. That s the way it has to be for us if we are to be priests who lead others upward in our worship, in the Word of God, in the will of God, but also 4. LIVE AS A WITNESS FOR GOD (v.6c) Malachi 2:6c - He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin. Now remember that at the root of all this is our worship and honor for God. Living in the Word of God and for the will of God flow from that. And the fruit of all of that is our witness that it leads others upwards. Through our Gospel witness we point others away from their sin to look to Jesus and be saved. But sadly, the priests in Malachi s day had grown so complacent and apathetic about this that the Lord had to say in v.8 you haven t turned others from sin; you have turned from the way yourself and you re causing others to stumble. And again I trace this all back to the fact that they have no reverence for God. QUOTE: In one of his books Oswald Chambers said, The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else. EXAMPLE: There s a powerful example of this in Numbers 25. In the days of Moses some of the Israelite men committed sexual immorality with pagan women and even worshipped their gods. The Lord s anger burned against these Israelite men and he sent a plague among them that killed 24,000. In spite of that one of the men, in clear sight of Moses and the others, took a prostitute into his tent.
A priest by the name of Phinehas saw it and was shocked that the people were dishonoring God in this way. He grabbed a spear, went into the immoral man s tent and killed the man and the prostitute, and the plague of God s judgment stopped. Now that s some OT justice that isn t permitted for you and me as NT followers of Jesus. But what passion and zeal Phinehas had for the honor and the glory of the Lord. He was courageous enough to stand up against the tide of evil that prevailed in his day. Listen to the tribute the Lord gave to Phinehas: Numbers 25:11 - Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them Let s be honest. Are we that zealous for the honor of God in our own lives and in the culture that surrounds us? Or are we just playing little church games, compromising, disobeying God without any reverence for Him? We will be people who lead others upward when we live as witnesses for God. So these priests are living under a curse of God s judgment because of their sin. You see, that was the way of what is called the Old Covenant which said, Obey my laws and you will have life and blessings. Disobey and you will be under the curse of My wrath against sin. And because no one could perfectly keep that law, the Lord in His mercy and grace made provision for the covering of their sin through the sacrifices that were repeatedly offered by the priests. But that covenant, that system, was not God s final solution for man s sin problem. Even through the prophet Malachi the Lord was preparing the way for the Messiah Jesus who would come as a perfect High Priest to offer Himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sins so that we could have forgiveness forever. And through that God puts His Spirit in us, changing us from the inside out. It is then, and only then, that we can be all that we should be as priests who live in the worship of God and the Word of God and the will of God and the witness of God. This is the New Covenant that God enacted for us through Jesus. We are about to share together in the Lord s Supper, and to prepare ourselves for this, I want you to listen as our singers declare The Power of the Cross. If you have never been saved, right where you are you can call on the Lord to save you. LORD S SUPPER Read Matthew 26:26-28. Luke 22:20b - This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.