What Are You Saying?
I.
Malachi 1:6-7-They are
dishonoring the Lord, despising and not valuing his things and yet they don’t
see how they are doing it and they don’t see in what ways they are doing that
A. Most people who are
despising the things of God don’t call it that so if you tell them they are
they say, “No we are not.”
1.
This
area of dishonor or lightly esteeming the things of God is an area where you
can think are honoring God, but you are not so we need for God show us so that
we can get it corrected
B. When they asked the Lord
to show them how and in what ways they were dishonoring him, He showed to them
and he’d do the same for me and you
1.
Unless
we ask the Lord to reveal it to us and show us we won’t see the corrections we
need to make in this area of honor
C. The deceptiveness of
dishonor is that you don’t see that you’re doing it and nobody likes to think
they are not honoring the Lord and treating Him and His things with the value
and respect and they should
1.
Dishonor
or not treating God and his things they way they should be treated is very easy
to slip into and not even know it
II.
Your honor is not
measured in your good intentions or in how you think you honor God or in how
much you say you honor God, but it’s measured in how you treat Him and His
things; Your honor for God is revealed in how you treat Him and His things
A. How you treat God and His
things says something about your honor for Him
1.
7,12-Did
they actually say, “The table of the Lord is worthless,” with their mouths? I
don’t think so, but they said it with their actions or how they treated it;
With their actions they are saying it’s not worth it, it’s not that important,
and we don’t value it that much (12AMP)
a. Sometimes you’re saying
it even if you’re not saying it by how you treat God and His things
b. You might not be saying
it with your mouth but the things you do speak so loudly that I can no longer
hear what you say
c. You’re saying it’s not
worth it by not being here, by not being on time, by not paying attention, by
not being prepared, by not doing it with excellence
2.
Matthew
15:8, Matthew 6:21-Jesus said the people honor me with their lips, but their
heart or what they treasure is far from me
a. You don’t locate honor by
looking at what a person says they honor, but rather by looking at what they
value
3.
14-Good
intentions-Someone who profess to give God their best and their all, but when
it comes time to move they don’t
B. How they are treating the
things of God is literally saying the table of the Lord is worthless
1.
Worthless
simply means not worth it; To them the table of the Lord wasn’t worth the best
and that’s why they brought the lame; They said the table of the Lord is
worthless; it’s not worth the good bread and the good sacrifices
2.
The
spirit of this here is that with these offerings they are saying to God you are
not worth the good sacrifices, you are not worth our best and it’s dishonor and
despising because they don’t value God and His things enough to give him the
good/best sacrifice
3.
3:13-14-They’re
saying God is and His things aren’t worth it (His services, Fellowship with
him, etc.)
C. 12,13-In a routine it
easy to lose honor because what we do over and over again becomes common and
it’s easy to let your standards slip
1.
Hebrews
7:27, 10:11-These priests brought offerings up here everyday and at some point
through routine it became common and their standards fell it wasn’t treated
with the same respect that it once was because they do it all the time
2.
Through
a routine things can become common and we got to be on guard to never allow God
& His things to become common
3.
There’s
no faithfulness or honor in just showing up; that’s what these people are doing
– Faithfulness and honor is showing up everyday and giving God your very
best
III.
If there is no honor in
what you are doing, then it won’t be accepted
A. 8-God calls their
offering evil; They are going to church and bringing an offering and God’s
saying it’s EVIL
1.
Going
through the motions and throwing God your scraps isn’t going to be enough
2.
Scrap
throwing going through motion people will not be promoted
3.
“They
should just be thankful I showed up after all I’m a volunteer” – WRONG
B. 13-It actually became
drudgery to them; It wasn’t that they weren’t doing anything for the Lord, they
were doing something but it contained no honor; They acted like making this
sacrifice and bringing this offering was putting them out; that it was drudgery
1.
When
you act like it’s a drudgery what you are saying is it’s not even worth my
time
2.
VOICE-Don’t you see how
boring all these required rituals are
C. You can be righteous
before God and accepted by Him and your offering be unacceptable b/c you’re not
saved by what you do
D. God’s interested in your
heart because that’s where your treasure is, that’s where your honor is, that’s
where you are; If you give him an offering like this, there’s no honor it, your
heart is not in it and you’re not in it
1.
They
are not in this offering, their heart is not in this offering because they
don’t care about God and his things
2.
God’s
after you because this gives him access to do the things He wants to do in your
life; but if Him and His things mean nothing to you then dishonor will disable
Him and deny Him access in your life
E. 10-The Lord is saying if
you’re going to give me some second rate, lukewarm, half-hearted effort I’d
rather have nothing from you
1.
God’s
saying I’d wish you’d just shut the doors and bring nothing at all –
Revelation 3:16
2.
God
doesn’t receive every offering and doesn’t accept every offering; This is
unacceptable to the Lord because it is devoid of honor
a. Is it possible to “do
something for the Lord,” and get no credit for it and it not be accepted by God
because of the half-hearted effort with which you do it
b. This attitude, “It’s good
enough for the church,” is unacceptable and reeks of dishonor
F. Don’t get into legalism
and bondage where this is concerned – People say things like well nothing
is good enough for the Lord and I guess you could never pray enough or give
enough or read his word enough and that paints God out to be some unruly
taskmaster and it’s simply not true
1.
God
can be satisfied and he can be pleased with what you’ve done; Your best is good
enough for the Lord
2.
You
have to check your own heart when you’ve done something or when you’re praying
and you’ll know in your own heart by the leading of the spirit when it’s the
Lord is satisfied and when it was enough and if you do what the spirit leads
you to do then God is satisfied and you did do enough, read enough, pray enough
IV.
Malachi 1:8-The strongest
manifestation of dishonor is that you are willing to do it from someone/thing
else, but you’re not for the Lord
A. The insinuation is that
when they went to pay their taxes to their governor they didn’t bring him these
leftovers and scraps – They wouldn’t do it for the governor, but not for
1.
It
a was really case of them honoring themselves above the Lord because if they
would have brought that to the governor it would have threatened their own
livelihood and well being and they were too important to themselves to let that
happen so when it came time to pay taxes their own well-being was worth the
good offering, but God wasn’t
B. What some are willing to
do for others they are not willing to do for God: This dishonor of the highest
order
1.
The
serious thing here is they were willing to do it for someone else (governor),
but not for the Lord
2.
When
you are are willing to do things for your job, for
your kids, for money, that you are not willing to do for God it shows more
honor for those things than Him
3.
God
gave them a natural example to show them that you value other things more than
you value me; Some will do anything for their family, but won’t wake up in the
morning to spend time with me; Some will do anything for money, but won’t go to
church when I tell them to; Some will do anything for their career, but won’t
serve in the church for me; Some will wake up early and stay up late, but not
for me; Some will work long hours, but not for me
C. 11-God says I’ll find
somebody who’s going to treat my stuff with honor
1.
There’s
somebody out there who will honor God and treat his things they way they should
be treated
V. How God treats you is directly connected to whether or not you
honor him and his things
A. 2:9-God is treating them
differently than He would have had they honored him
1.
They
do not value God and His things and these sacrifices anymore, but they used to
at one time
B. 2:5-The Levites got off
but God chose them originally because they did honor God and value God’s things
1.
Some
are getting picked to do things that others are not because some value God’s
things more than others