Word of Salvation – Vol.52 No.41 – November 2007

 

Giving Second-Best To God

 

By Rev. Jack Kapinga

Text: Malachi 1:6-2:9

Other Reading: 1 Peter 2:4-12

Songs Used: BoW 145, 198, 465, 436, 215

 

Introduction.

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

There is a story that is told about a young couple. This young couple got married and on their wedding day they received many beautiful presents and gifts. But as so often happens, they did not have time to open all of their presents straight away. They had to go off on their honeymoon and besides they didn't have much space in their small unit. So many of their presents were packed away until later.

But then the day came when they decided it was time to see what else they had received. And they came to a particularly big box. They took off the wrapping paper to discover that it was large food processor. They weren't sure that it would be very practical, especially in their small kitchen. But they could see that someone had gone to the trouble of buying it, and it was very expensive, and so they were grateful to the people who had so thoughtfully given this gift.

But then they opened up the box and they discovered something strange. There had been a card on the outside of the present but inside they found another card. But when they opened it they realised that this second card was not addressed to them. Rather it was addressed to the people who had given them the gift. You see what they discovered was that this food processor had been given to this other couple on their wedding day many years earlier, but they had never opened the box. Obviously they didn't like it and didn't want it so they had wrapped it up again pretending that it was a new present for someone else.

And so this young married couple were not quite so grateful anymore. Their friends had given them a gift but the gift was something that they didn't want themselves, something they couldn't use, something that had cost them nothing. In other words they had given them something that was second best.

Congregation, the point is that sometimes we can treat God just like that. We give him second best. And the passage we're looking at today from Malachi is about just that topic.

1. Second Best in our Actions.

In the days of Malachi, the people of Israel were at a low point in their history. God had returned them from their time in exile but even so they had become discouraged and despondent. And as a result they had begun to doubt God's love. But what we see in our passage today is that they had also begun to drift away from the Lord and they did not honour him the way they once did. And so in verse 6 God confronts them on this issue.

He begins by making a statement. He says, "A son honours his father, and a servant his master." The people of Israel would not have denied that. The matter of sons honouring fathers and servants honouring masters was very important to them.

But then he goes on. "If I am a father, where is the honour due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me? says the LORD Almighty." God says you may well honour your earthly fathers and masters but what about me? Am I not your Creator, the one who made you? And am I not the one who in love and mercy chose you to be my own children? Don't you owe me far greater honour and respect? And notice that he addresses his words particularly to the priests. They were the ones who mediated between God and the people and so they should have honoured him most of all. But God says that they are the worst for they show contempt for his name.

But they don't believe it. They are going about their priestly business like they always have. They don't think they're doing anything wrong and so they ask, "How have we shown contempt for your name?" Well God is going to tell them. He says, "You place defiled food on my altar. But you ask, How have we defiled you?" The Lord says the problem has something to do with the altar, the place in the temple where the priests offered the sacrifices, and this was the central part of their job. But they still didn't believe it. "Who us?" they ask, "We don't do anything wrong." But God tells them that they do, they have contempt for his table, for his altar, and in this way they show they have contempt for God!

In verse 8 he comes to the root of the problem. God says, "When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong?" Well they knew full well that it is wrong. Way back in Deuteronomy 15 he told them, "If an animal has a defect, is lame or blind, or has any serious flaw, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God." And there are other passages that go into great detail to explain the same thing. When the people of Israel brought a sacrifice to the Lord it had to be their best animal, their firstborn, an animal without any defect. But instead the priests were offering animals that were blind and crippled and diseased, animals that were worthless, no good for anything else.

God says, "Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" If they tried to give a gift like that to a human ruler then he would never accept it. And they would never even try it. But yet they bring such useless gifts to the Lord and expect him to be happy with them. Take a look at verse 9. "Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you? - says the LORD Almighty." There is no way that God would accept such disrespect from his people.

In fact God is so angry about their actions that he tells them they may as well pack up and go home. "Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you, says the LORD Almighty, and I will accept no offering from your hands." It would be better for them to ignore God completely than to bring him such worthless sacrifices.

Then in verse 11 he goes on to say that the day is coming when pure offerings will be brought by people from every nation, that they will respect and honour him. But yet the nation he has chosen, the people of Israel, they have contempt for the altar and they defile it and they see it as a burden to give their best for the Lord. And then from verse 13 he confirms it again. "When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands? says the LORD. Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king, says the LORD Almighty, and my name is to be feared among the nations."

So congregation, the issue could not be clearer, could it? The people of Israel were God's chosen people, the people he had saved and delivered time and time again, the people he had blessed in so many ways. But yet they failed to honour and respect God by giving him their best. He called on them to bring sacrifices that were without defect. But that all seemed too difficult for them, the cost was too high. And so instead they brought him the worst animals they had. Like those people who gave the food processor, they gave what they didn't want, what they couldn't use, they gave something that was worth nothing to them. The issue is that they gave God second best.

But my friends, what does that mean for us? Well in this passage God was speaking to the priests, to those people who were mediators between him and his people. But we know that today we don't need a human mediator. Because of Jesus and his sacrifice we now have direct access to God. But the New Testament makes it clear that as such we are all priests. In the passage we read from 1 Peter 2, we are told that we are to be a holy priesthood and later he says that we are a royal priesthood. Or in the book of Revelation we are told that he has made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve the Lord.

The question is, what kind of sacrifices do we offer? We know that when Jesus died on the cross that he fulfilled the Old Testament sacrificial system; no more blood needs to be shed. But yet the New Testament tells us that we still have sacrifices to make. In 1 Peter it said that we are to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In Philippians 4 Paul is speaking about the monetary gifts the people sent him to help in his ministry. And he says, "They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God."

Or in Hebrews 13 it says, "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise - the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." And in Romans 12 Paul writes, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship." In other words, as Christians today God calls on us to sacrifice ourselves for him by serving him every day in every aspect of our lives.

But then the issue that confronts us is this. When we look at our lives, are we giving our very best for God, are we bringing him the finest sacrifice that we could, are we serving him with all our hearts? Or are we giving him second best?

I give God second best when the collection bag comes around and all I put in is my small change. I give second best for God when I only do my devotions when I'm tired and I fall asleep half way through. I give second best when I'm asked to get involved in some Christian ministry and I only say yes if my arm is twisted and I've got absolutely nothing else to do instead. I give second best when I'm part of some group or committee in the church but only put in half the effort that I could. I give second best when I come to church and I only sing if I like the songs and I only appreciate the sermon if it's nice and short. I give second best for God if I look for every excuse not to evangelise to people around me.

You know it's not hard to lapse into giving God second-best, and we can all fall into the trap. We don't give the Lord the best of our time and our money and our effort. We only give him what we don't really need, what we can't use for anything else, what costs us nothing. But congregation such sacrifices are worthless.

God says: Try acting like that towards your boss, or to the coach of your sports team, or to your husband or your wife. Will they take second best? No of course not. So why would we expect the Lord to? He says if you want to act like that then you may as well pack up and go home, you may as well shut the doors of the church for he will not accept such second rate offerings from us.

God doesn't want us to bring him the leftovers, what we don't want, what doesn't come at a price. He is our Creator and our Saviour, he is the Lord God Almighty, he is infinitely glorious. And so he wants our very best.

2. Second Best in our Attitude.

But brothers and sisters, before we finish there is one other thing that we need to understand from this passage. You see when we give God second best in our lives, then there is something more that lies behind it. Behind our half-hearted actions lies a half-hearted attitude. And that's what God addresses in Malachi 2:1-9. The priests had been offering blemished animals on the altar. But this was an outward symptom of what lay within their hearts. And so in chapter 2:1 God tells them that he has a further admonition for them.

In verse 2 he tells them that the problem is that they have not set their hearts to honour him. It's not just because of their actions that they will be cursed but because of their attitude. And in verse 3 he says that he will judge them and punish them for their evil ways. But then from verse 4 God reveals why this is so important. He says he is giving them this warning and threatening them with punishment for the sake of his covenant.

You see God had made promises to his people. He had promised to deliver them from their enemies. He had promised to make them his own special possession. He had promised to make them a great nation and to give them a land of milk and honey to live in. He had promised to give them every blessing. That was God's part of the covenant. But the people of Israel also had to keep their covenant obligations. God called on them to love him and to trust him and to respect him and to serve him and to obey him. And if they did then the covenant would stand. And that's exactly what the Lord is saying here.

In chapter 2:4-7 he says, "And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so that my covenant with Levi may continue, says the LORD Almighty. My covenant was with him, 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. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin. 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."

God mentions Levi because he was the father of Israel's priesthood. And he says that he made a covenant with him and Levi responded with reverence and truth and righteousness. And he said that this set the pattern for all the priests to come. But in Malachi's day the priests had broken the covenant. Look at verse 8 to the end. "But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi, says the LORD Almighty. So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law."

Congregation, in the time of Malachi, God's people were bringing him blemished sacrifices. But behind their wrong actions was a wrong attitude. God had blessed them in so many ways, but they did not honour him in return. They did not care about his promises and so they did not seek to love him and serve him with all their hearts. They had lost their respect and reverence for the Lord. And because they had violated the covenant, God had no choice but to punish them for their evil ways.

We must also consider how this applies to us. We have already seen that there are times when we give God second best in our lives. But if we do, then we need to take a good hard look at our own hearts. We need to go behind our actions and examine our attitudes. For maybe our half-heartedness reflects the fact that we have lost our respect and our reverence for the Lord. Perhaps we are bringing second rate sacrifices because we no longer care about God, we are no longer in awe of his greatness. And if you can recognize that in yourself, then the message of our text is that you need to turn back to God. Think about who he really is, our Creator and our Redeemer, and honour him as you should.

Conclusion.

Brothers and sisters, God sent Malachi to warn his people, and it is vital that we still heed his warning today. For the Lord God Almighty has done wonderful things for us. He has delivered us from sin and judgement, he has granted us salvation, he watches over us every day and blesses us in so many ways, and he has promised us that when we die, we will dwell with him forever in glory. Our Lord Jesus Christ was not half-hearted in obeying the Father. In providing for our salvation, he went all the way to death. He gave himself, so that we might live. And in return for all of this he wants us to love him and respect him and revere him. And he wants us to do that by offering him our bodies as living sacrifices. It means that we will serve him by giving him our all.

How can we be half-hearted when we remember his great goodness to us? How can we give him second best? After all he did not give us second best. No he gave us his very best, his own Son. He gave us Jesus and he sacrificed him on the cross. And the reason he did was so that we could be saved. So let us respond to the grace of God by giving him our all. Not the minimum, not the leftovers, not second best. But let us give him our very best. And by so doing we will honour the Lord.

Amen.