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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) |
MALACHI 3:6-10a
(Reading: Num.18:8-32; 2 Cor.9:6-15; Mal.3:6-10a)
The Lord Re-Claims His Tithe
What we give in our offerings is a response to God’s Word. Since we have received the greatest gift of all in Jesus Christ we give back to him. As Paul wrote in our reading from 2nd Corinthians 9 verse 12, our giving is expressing our thanks to God.
And doesn’t he end that chapter so strongly about that? He cries out in verse 15, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”
Now, you might be wondering what all this has got to do with the text for this sermon. How can a passage from the Old Testament teach us about this grace of giving? For many Christians there was no grace then. In fact, those Christians believe that the Old Testament Israelites had to give their offerings because it was through their works that they were saved then. They say it was only after Jesus had come that things changed.
So you will find that many churches talk about public worship in the Old Testament as being strictly ceremonial. That means that what God’s people did then on the outside is alone what mattered. With Christ’s coming they say there came the time of grace, and so we don’t have the law anymore.
Looking at the background to our text disproves this quite decisively, however, for if it were a matter in the Old Testament of God’s people living by the Law well they didn’t do that anyway! The fact that his people are around at the time of Malachi, just four hundred and fifty years before Christ, shows how long-suffering the Lord has been! If it had been up to what his people were supposed to do it would have ended a long time before this!
This is even how our text begins. Verse 6 ties in the people’s survival with God’s own character. For, note, it is the name of the LORD here. That’s LORD in capital letters. This translates in the word YAHWEH in the Hebrew. YAHWEH - Jehovah in the King James. This is the name which specifically refers to the God in covenant with his people.
This is how God describes himself when he meets with his people - his self-revelation. This is the name we know as Jesus in the New Testament. For this is the Saviour God. He is the God of the Exodus, the God who brought them back from the Exile, and the God who has saved them so often in-between.
And what could this Lord God possibly be after at this desperate stage in his people’s history? Actually, the same thing he has always wanted in them - right through to where his people are now! In the words of a first aspect to this text, he says that … GOD’S PEOPLE MUST WORSHIP SPIRITUALLY.
You see, God’s people then were worshipping him. Just like today there are millions all over this world going to church.
And many of them will think they are there for the right reason. As we see at the end of verse 7. For, there, when the LORD lays before his people the need to return to him, they ask, “How are we to return?”
These people cannot think of anything wrong with what they do. I mean, they’ve always done it this way. And don’t go accusing them of not being genuine! Don’t you dare challenge their sincerity!
But you do wonder about them, don’t you? Because come Monday and they’re as ruthless as the unbelievers they work with when it comes to nailing a deal!
Even on Sunday you can see it. Their religion is a matter of what they can get away with, not a response of being so thankful for all they receive. And what they give to the Lord - whether that’s their money, their time, talents, or anything else - is pared to the bone. It’s almost as if for them it’s about what the church can do for them, and not them for the Lord.
That’s exactly what Malachi faced. Those people do not see the LORD for who he was. There was no sense of real privilege that they could meet the Lord this way. In fact, there was no thought at all about what he had done!
No thought! And if there’s no thought there’s no love. And where there’s no love there’s no relationship! Isn’t that true?
GOD PEOPLE MUST WORSHIP HIM SPIRITUALLY. That’s why Malachi is as blunt as he is. “Will a man rob God?” he asks brutally in verse 8!
They have to be shocked. “Yet you rob me,” he says from God. And then they are certainly shocked.
“How do we rob you?” they reply. And that shows it! The case is proved. If they don’t know what they doing wrong, they don’t know him. For to know him is to love him. And then you know exactly how you have robbed him.
Because in that case you know what the Lord requires of you. In those words of Micah 6:8, you realise you should be acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with your God - but you haven’t! This is the experience of David in Psalm 51, verse 17, when he speaks of the only acceptable sacrifice being that of a broken spirit.
This is why Malachi summons the people to repentance in verse 7. “Return to me…” he cries out. If they would purify their worship then things would be so much different, because they certainly weren’t being blessed.
Verse 9 is quite clear how they’re presently under a curse. God cannot bless the individual, church, or nation that spares him nothing. In fact, the LORD so closely identifies himself with his servants that to withhold from them is to rob him.
That’s why repentance would be shown by the opposite of what was happening in Malachi’s time. For if you have honestly changed in your heart you’ll keep showing that through obeying God’s Law. As Jesus said in John 14, verse 15, “If you love me you will obey what I command.”
This means GOD’S PEOPLE MUST WORSHIP SPIRITUALLY. And this leads us to a second consideration. You see, it has to result in … GOD’S PEOPLE SHOW THIS MATERIALLY.
Here Malachi gives us a very pointed direction about our giving to the LORD. It’s all here the first four words of verse 10. “Bring the whole tithe,” declares the LORD Almighty.
Ah, but what was the tithe? Some Christians will tell you quite definitely that it’s 10% of our gross income here. Others will say it refers to your net income. It’s enough to create quite a discussion at many a Bible Study!
Actually, we sell the LORD short if we think that it’s 10% here. For if you look back at the prescriptions God laid down through Moses it comes up to more than 22%!
Now, doesn’t that make you think? And so it should!
You see, congregation, the whole tithe Malachi speaks of here consists of both the annual tithes and the offerings. The annual tithe is spelt out in Numbers 18:24 as the first-fruits which were to go to the Levites, who themselves gave 10% to the priests, which is in verse 28 there. And every three years a community feast was held, as Deuteronomy 14, the verses 28 and 29, says, where the poor were fed also.
Then there were the “offerings” and the voluntary gifts for a special purpose. So out of this “whole title” Malachi speaks of there was to be support for the ministry of the Word and the ministry of Mercy.
Now, some raise the point that this was the national economy of Israel. So their giving was similar to our paying taxes today. And don’t we pay taxes today! Income Tax, Goods & Services Tax, Petrol Tax - even when you leave the country they get you with a fee!
This is a good point. But it still doesn’t do away with the Biblical principle of the tithe. Because the tithe was there before the nation of Israel came about. Already in Genesis 14 verse 20 there’s the tithe which Abraham gave to Melchizedek, a priest of God Most High. Later his grandson Jacob made the vow to the Lord at Bethel, in Genesis 28 verse 22, where he promises him a tenth of all the Lord’s given him.
So we have in the tithe, which is one in ten, a similar principle to the Sabbath, which is one in seven. For while we may say that everything we have belongs to the Lord, just like every day should be lived to the Lord, yet there is a certain proportion which the Lord says we need to give to him in a certain way.
Perhaps this illustration from Robert Laidlaw helps here. He said, “I go to a home where there is a little girl, five or six year old, and I give her a box of chocolates. She straight-away disappears, and when she comes back her lips and fingers are covered with chocolate.”
“In another home, however, the box is opened at once, and the little lassie brings it to me, and says, ‘You have the first one.’ ‘Oh, no!’ I say, ‘they are for you.’ ‘But please,’ she pleads, ‘you brought them to me, do please have the first one.’ And helping myself I say, ‘Thank you, dear.’”
“Which child has the warmest place in my affections, and which is more likely to get another box of chocolates?”
So the tithe is the first chocolate handed back to God. That’s the gratitude you express when you receive something. That’s the opening of a gift while the giver is there to especially appreciate the one who gave it to you.
For some, it will mean one-tenth of the total income. With others it will mean more, but never less. And the New Testament at no point takes this principle away.
In fact, when Jesus mentions the tithe in connection with the very careful way the Pharisees kept the law, he doesn’t do away with it. Rather, in Matthew 23, verse 23, he points out that they haven’t first of all worshipped the Lord spiritually. They showed this through neglecting the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness.
And in Hebrews chapter 7 the writer, in proving Jesus Christ as being in the order of Melchizedek, a Priest of God Most High, brings up the tithe. He doesn’t declare it void either. Indeed, he connects it to the Church today because of how Christ Jesus is now the Priest Most High!
It’s an interesting side-point that those who believe in that difference between law and grace will yet insist on Christians giving a tithe in order to receive God’s blessing - and a double or triple tithe will make you more blessed still! While they haven’t worried at all about keeping the Christian Sabbath, which also predates the nation of Israel, they will make sure they get to keep your tithe!
So having addressed the amount, Malachi next mentions where you give it and why. In the third place we see, GOD’S PEOPLE DO THIS LOCALLY. “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,” declares the LORD Almighty.
From the time of Hezekiah, as we read in 2nd Chronicles 31 verse 11, there was in the sanctuary a storehouse built for depositing the tithes and offerings of the people. Nehemiah 10 verse 38 tells of how this continued with the second Temple.
Long before those times, however, Moses had told the people that they were to bring all their tithes and offerings to one place. In Deuteronomy 14 it’s even spelt out how if a man lived too far away to carry his produce or livestock to that place, he was to turn it into money. That was so he could “go to the place the LORD your God will chose,” as verse 25 says there.
Now, in the time of Malachi that place was a storehouse built next to the Temple. And that has changed. You cannot speak of such a distinct location in our day, can you?
Well, with the doing and dying of Jesus Christ his Church no longer has a distinct physical location. Despite what many Christians may believe today, Israel is simply another country caught up the morass of this world’s sinfulness. But Christ’s Church is still found at physical locations - though now right throughout the world! And it’s such a place the apostle Paul describes in 1st Corinthians 16 verse 2, using a word with the same origin as this word in the text. This is the word for ‘storing up.’
You see, when Paul exhorts the Corinthian believers to “set aside a sum of money” in keeping with their income, it’s speaking of something God’s people plan to do at a certain time and place. The time is on the first day of the week - the Christian Sabbath - and the place is where the congregation are gathered together for worship.
And then Malachi tells us the purpose of bringing it to this place. For in verse 10 he goes on, “that there may be food in my house.”
The terribly sad thing that happened so often in Israel’s history was that the Levites had to go and work the land because the whole tithe didn’t come in. And that affected the complete spiritual life of Israel. For it was the Levites whose special task it was to minister for the LORD right throughout the land. From teaching the children in classes right through to ensuring that all the people followed God’s Laws, they bore a heavy responsibility. And when Jeroboam I set up rival shrines at Dan and Bethel he staffed them with non-levitical priests, exactly to cut that tie with the Temple, which the Levite Priests were consecrated for.
You see, they carried the people before the LORD. Their calling was prayer, and especially prayer at the place where the Lord was.
By not giving the “whole tithe” God’s people were holding back on his work. The Lord who had called them there to be a witness to him among the nations wasn’t being allowed to be that.
This makes for an interesting point. Because if the Lord has specially called us to be a people to glorify him and enjoy him forever what happens when we don’t do what we were made for?
I mean, if you try to get your car to do the kind of speed Formula One cars do, or the tricks that only a Go-Kart can do, you’ll only get trouble. So what do you think happens when Christians don’t do what they’re meant to do?
Then it’s not only a matter of not going God’s way, but you’ll find out what a curse really is. For you are meant to be a blessing! And if you aren’t doing what the Lord means you to do, what are you doing? And what kind of toll is it taking out of you - spiritually and physically? That is whether you realise it or not!
Sometimes Christians say, “Imagine what the Church could do if everybody tithed! Imagine how many more missionaries we could send out, how many more evangelistic projects could be done, and how much more we could be really promoting the gospel!”
But we need to put it differently than that. You see, how much more then wouldn’t each of God’s people themselves receive from him! Because then you would be doing exactly what you were re-created to do!
It’s that inner blessing which comes out in the next three verses. But already now if you are worshipping the Lord spiritually, and you are showing this by giving materially, as he has told you, you know this blessing.
And if you aren’t then you test him! Take him at his Word, and see that your life is turned around! In fact, it is then that you’ll realise, “This is really what it’s all about!” I was made for this!”
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
LORD God, it is alone in you that we find our very being. For without you we would the most lost of all people.
But in you we are the most fulfilled and richly blessed among all mankind. We have it all, through the doing and dying of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And so through him may our thoughts and words and actions always say, “Thank you!”
Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2022, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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