Walk and Talk - Malachi 2:1-9

All right. Let's see if I can do this. I know what everyone's thinking right now. You're thinking, this guy does not want to know what I'm thinking. In fact, you're probably thinking yourself, wait a second. This can't be, who is this guy? No, how did we get stuck with him? What happened? Well, the good news is next week. The A-Team's back. In fact, the A team's back every single week. And so I would like to take the time to thank our pastors for being faithful to God to bring God's word to us week in and week out. And, Lord willing, I will do my best to do that today. We're going to be in Malachi. Malachi chapter number two, look there. We'll get to there a second. But speaking of M words, Speaking of M words, we got Molly. Molly, Maggie. Molly, Maggie was young. She was in her 20s. She was happy. She was go lucky, and she just got a real good job. At least for World War I, at least for a girl. She got a job as a lip point painter for a watch dial factory. It was a great job. And it wasn't just any job. She got to work with the super exclusive, super cool, all her friends were jealous, glow in the dark paint. That's right. This paint glowed in the dark. Ooh, on Fridays. Don't tell anybody, but Molly and her friends would accidentally flick a little bit of that paint all on their dresses, and they say that they would go out in the town after the sun went down. They would all glow, and it would be beautiful, and they would just dance the night away. And man, Molly, Maggie was living her best life. Except one day, her tooth, her tooth started hurting. And it hurts so bad that she went to a dentist, and then just pulled it. No big deal. You can still look good with without one tooth, right? But then there was another tooth. And she had had that pulled. And then another. And then another. And then, Molly had no teeth. Imagine being 20 something girl with no teeth. And then Molly Maggie died. Whoa. Because that glow in the dark paint wasn't just glow in the dark paint. It was radium. And radium kills. Wow, Trevor, that is, whoo. What a blow. That's pretty rough. But the good news is, you know, today, Trevor, we don't make mistakes like that, we know that radium's bad, except. They actually knew it was bad back then. The owner knew it was dangerous. The owner knew it could kill. At one point in time, he was like, let's test all the girls out just to see what's going on. And they said, and they found out, wait, they're all irradiated. The boss men came to the foreman. And the foreman came to the owner and they were like, should we tell them, should we do something? Should we stop this? It could get worse. And the owner was like, nope, we're making way too much money to ruin it by telling them the truth. And the next couple years, 50 girls would die. And the next 10 years, over a 100 ladies would die. Makes me feel angry. And in modern day, We are very quick to judge all these people who have abused their power. So what do we do? What do we do when bad things happen? What do we do when there's sin? What do we do if there's sin with other people? And what do we do if there's sin in my life? I tell you what, we go to the Bible. Malachi chapter number two. Malachi chapter number two, verses one through nine. I'm going to read it again. And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of Host, then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them because you do not lay it to heart, behold, I will rebuke your offspring and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi my stand, says the Lord of hosts. My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth. For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts, but you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levites as the Lord of hosts, and shall I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways, but show partiality in your instruction. You know, in today's message, we're going to see how God called to task those who abused their power. But I don't want to keep it there. It is my hope, it is indeed my aim that we will take our very often correct, judging fingers, and we will turn them into ourselves. We will be able to take the sword of the Lord, and we'll have it be able to pierce our own hearts. And Lord willing, we will be able to have a, thou art the man moment. Father, I pray now that you can give me Good speech, good diction. I pray that I could speak, the words, and you can give me grace where I fault. Amen. All right. What's the main idea? What's the main idea? The big idea, the main thought is honor the Lord with your walk and your talk. Trevor, that's so basic, so basic, man. You know what? The Bible often is basic. But that doesn't mean it's easy. To help us make it maybe a little bit easier to think through this passage, I'm going to have 4 questions as we go through. You can write them down, but I'm going to hit them again later, so don't worry about it. I'm going to say them real quick. How serious is honoring the Lord? What happens when we do not repent? Does God care if we honor him? And how do we honor God? And with all of this. We should be reminded. Dalton mentioned it 2 weeks ago. Main idea in Malachi in many ways is found in Malachi one, two. I have loved you, says the Lord. Question for me. Question for you. Do we love God? Do we love God? Point number one. Point one, number one, God disciplines, if you look on your screens, you can see I'm going to be covering verses one through 3 and 8 and nine. Trevor, that's so confusing. Why don't you just like stick to one section at a time? Because the Bible often goes in themes. The good stuff's in the middle will get to that in just a little bit. But the harsh stuff's on the edges. In fact, it's so difficult. I'm gonna go through this 1st point twice. And I'm gonna use our questions, which I've already asked, to help us guide through these passages. So the 1st question. How serious is honoring the Lord? Verse one. Priests. What a priest anyway. No? I think I've seen those outside before. Well, priests here, we're talking about the Levitical priests. Specifically, those who were descended from Aaron. Their main job, Their main task, their main feature, if you will, is to go to God on behalf of the people. They were supposed to be serving God. verse number two. God gives them conditions. He gives them 2 ifs. He says, if. You will not listen. Like, Trevor, I like listening. When I drove in today, I listen to the radio. I jammed out. I like podcasts. Listening's easy. I can do this. This sounds fun. A little bit different. I have kids. I'm guessing, at one point in time, maybe you were a kid? Um, and for my kids, when I'm talking to them sometimes, I'm like, hey, hey, hey. Listen. Listen. Listen. Do I mean, hey, let's listen to the radio. No. I mean, I want you to obey. And I'm about to tell you what I want you to obey. So when he says, if you will not listen, he means, If you're not going to obey. If you're not going to obey. And then it goes on, he says, if you will not take it to heart. Now, this could mean a lot of different things. Like, are we talking about, like, you know, you're, like, punching people and you're like, oh, oh, I got, I took it to heart. Or maybe like when I was I remember when I was dating Amber before I went up to her, I had, oh, I had those nervous butterflies. Oh, man. I really took it to heart before I asked her. That was how we're talking about. This is kind of an odd phrase. But if you read the Old Testament, you might, in fact, you probably have heard this passage before. Don't turn there, but it's also found in Daniel chapter one, verse eight, down chapter one, verse eight. So Daniel was taken away from all his family, everything he know, he could have reinvented himself and done everything. Anything. But the Bible in Daniel 18 says this. Daniel took it to heart. to not defile himself. A lot of times we translate it slightly different. Daniel purposed in his heart. Daniel resolved in his heart. Daniel took it seriously. If you're not gonna obey, If you're not going to take it seriously, to do what? Well, honor the Lord. out of the Lord. What does that mean? Have you guys ever heard about it? I went to Sunday school. We have Sunday school kind of over here. We just don't call it that. When I was a little kid, I used to go to Sunday school. One of my favorite things is we would talk about, um, Jericho, the walls came, tell me, and down, and we all fell down. Oh my goodness, it was great fun. We just loved it. I don't remember the point of that story back in the day. But I remember that verse and I remember falling down. So right after that happens, that big city falls down, everything, everything gets collapsed, everything's bad. Joshua says, hey, there's this little city over here. It's nothing It' no big deal. Go, go take that. So they go over and they try to take that place. But they fail. Israelites die. And Joshua's like, look, there is sin in this camp. And so they go tribe by tribe, they go clan by clan, they go family by family. Don't look it up, but Joshua 719. He eventually goes, we the reader of the Bible. We know what's taken. Aiken knows it's Aiken. Joshua by this time. He knows it's taken. He goes up to Aiken, he's like, hey, Aiken. Give God the honor. Aiken, give God the glory. What does he mean? He means confess your sin. And that's exactly what Aiken does. So what he says, honor the name of the Lord here, he means, confess your sin. Am I obedient? Am I resolved to honor the Lord by confessing my sin. And if not, Then the text says, the Lord will send the curse. Not all curse. The curse. I'm not going to have you guys turn up there, but if you're interested, look up passages like Deuteronomy 28 and one of the key passages when we're talking about the curse. We're not talking about, like, Adam and Eve. Maybe you remember, hey, Adam and Eve, they sinned, they got the curse. We're not talking about the sin curse. We're talking about curse for the nation of Israel for covenant unfaithfulness. God says, I'm gonna send the curse. But if we skip down to the end of verse, he says, oh, guess what? I've already given you the curse. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out. This is too fast. You didn't even give us a chance. Have you ever hang out with little kids? And they spilled like water. And they're like, whoopsies. This is not a whoopsies. The end of the verses makes that clear. This is deliberate. This is repeated, and this is their failure. They've chosen an action, and God has already sent the curse to them. Let's skip ahead. Verse 8 and nine. Verse 8 and nine. over here too long, but there's 3 things I like to highlight. They have turned from the way. That's God's way. They have consistently acted ungodly, and verse 9, they've shown partiality. Oh, I do that all the time. I went to Culver's the other day, and I was like, you know what? Do I want to have chocolate or do I want to have caramel? I showed partiality, right? No, no, no. Partiality here is you are abusing justice. You are using God's word to get something you want at the expense of other people. Oh, that's pretty serious. Yeah, that's very serious. And then God says, I've made you despised and obeyed. So how serious, is honoring the Lord, serious enough, that God disciplines those he loves for unrepentant sin. I'm not going to hover here long, but Not every terrible thing that happens to you. Not every bad thing is because of God's discipline. But if you're in unrepentant sin. You need to be thinking about that. All right. Let's go back. I told you I'd hit, this is gonna be a long point, but the 2nd tour is so much shorter, so don't worry. Let's ask the 2nd question. What happens when we do not repent? If you notice in verse two, I skip some stuff. Let's go back to verse number two. It says, curse your blessing. So he talks about la la, la, the curse. And then he says, I will curse your blessings. Don't look there, but maybe jot down. Numbers chapter 6, verses 22 to 27. Number 6, 22, 27. What is this whole blessing stuff? One of the tasks, one of the jobs, one of the functions of the priests were to bless God's people. That's what they were supposed to do. What is God saying here? Look, if you are sinning. If you are an unrepentant sin, I will take away your ability to bless God's people. That's pretty serious. Okay, wake up the kids now. We're about at it. We're almost at the dung on faces part. The part that everyone's been waiting for. And you're thinking to yourself, I think I know what this is about, Trevor. I've seen that video. You know, you know what the video is. that with the monkey, you know? And he takes, you know, the, you know what I'm saying? I've seen that. Is that what you're talking about, Trevor? Is that what happened here? Kind of, kind of, okay, let me explain it. So dung here is the unclean part of an animal. Trevor, you went to school to tell us that? Of course, I know that. My mommy told me to go to the to go to the bathroom and wash my hands after, you know, potty potty time. I know, I know what uncleanness is in animals. Okay, yes, but a little bit different. We're not talking about antibacterial soap uncleanness. We're talking about ritual uncleanness. This unclean part is basically something like the undigested part of a stomach all the way down into, yes, exactly what you're thinking about. But they would take that part, because God said, you cannot use this to worship me. You have to take it outside of the temple, you have to take it outside of the camp. You have to take it way out and basically get rid of it and burn it out there. Okay, okay, okay. I think I can kind of get that. What does that mean? It's a metaphor. Dung on faces means, you priests will be rendered unfit to be used to worship God. Okay, that's serious. Unrepentant sin could result in me being unfit to be able to worship God. Now that's sad. Okay, Trevor, I'm reading here, though. We talk about offspring. Now, that can't mean kids, because I know in the Bible, it's somewhere. I don't remember exactly where, but it's somewhere there, Trevor, where it says that kids aren't judged for their parents' sin, something like that. Okay. Everyone come real close. Your sin. will hurt those around you. In fact, your sin will probably hurt those closest to you, the worst. And that's what it's trying to say. Skip and down. Verse number eight. It says he caused many to stumble by their instruction. You know what? I like instructions. Everyone here been to IKEA? So I went to IKEA and I had little instructions and it was like, oh, it says 2 screws, not three. You're doing it wrong. I felt so good about myself, because I love following good instructions. Is that the kind of instructions we're talking about here? No. By instruction. He doesn't mean just general instructions. He's talking about the word of God. You have used God's word to lead other people into sin, for your own benefit, and for the detriment of those people. That's pretty serious. So, What happens when we do not repent? What happens when we do not obey? What happens when we are not resolved, like Daniel, to honor God by confessing sin? Unrepentant sin results. in an inability to serve God, an inability to bless others. They will often harm those around us and can lead others to sin. So that's the bad stuff. Question number three. Question three. Does God care? Trevor, does God even care if we honor him? Is it just all about this judgment, this discipline stuff? I don't know if God cares. Point number two. God desires repentance from those he loves. God desires repentance. verse number four. We're in verse number four. So it starts with, so shall you. That's what ESV says, and that can feel very open-ended. It can feel very open-ended. But I tell you what, the force is volition. You should know. You should know. Now, I'm not talking about acing a test. Some of you guys are in college. Maybe you had a test a couple weeks ago, where you're going to have a test in a week from now, you're like, I'm going to ace that test. I should know it. I should get this information. No, it's more like this. When I was young, my parents, in their living room, they had a ton of antiques. In fact, I've been to antique museums and such. I've been like, wait a second. We have that literally in our living room. Um, and so my parents were like, okay, Trevor, don't run in the living room because something's going to be broken. It's, you know, it's antique. We can't replace it. I was like, you got it. And guess what? Next week, I needed to run. And so I ran. And sure enough, I broke a vase, as my mom would say. And my dad came to me and he was like, oh, Trevor. You should have known. And by that, he's like, we're gonna have a test later, and I really want to get a 10 out of 10. No. He was saying, I instructed you in the way that you should go, and you chose disobedience. You should have known better, but you didn't. The knowledge here is an expectation for a proper response. God is sending this warning as an elicit, or as an a specific response to repentance, he wants us to repent. If one through three, says God's expecting us to repent. Verse 4 tells us the heart of God. I want you to repent because God cares. God has a heart. for us, and he desires that we repent. But then we're not done there. He says, The covenant of Levi may stand. Now, I, man, I would love to bore you guys to death. about all the things that the covenant of Levi means. And maybe thinking to yourself, Trevor, I've never heard of this past. I've never heard of this. Covenant of Levi, it's not in the Bible. Did you just switched all our ESV versions or something? No, trust me, it's in there. Jot it down for later, like passages like numbers 25 just for fun. But the short version is this. Um, he's talking about the duty of the priest, the task, the function of the priest. He's saying, I want you to repent. So that you can continue to do that which I have desired. I have designed for you to do. So what, um, what, uh, what has he designed is maybe a question. First, does God care if we honor him, of course. God desires that you repent, so you can do what he has called you to do. God loves you. In many ways, this is the center of the passage. It's not my personal opinion that's the center. It's just literally the center of this passage, and I believe it is the emphasis. of this passage. God loves you and he wants you to repent. What God is, what has God called me to do? What is the nature of this covenant, Trevor? And how do we honor God? My final point. God defines obedience in those he loves. God defines obedience. First number five. We're going to lay out the nature of this covenant. God's gonna give a little. The people are gonna give a little, the priests. God's gonna give in verse number five, life and peace. Maybe jot down Proverbs 3, one through 3 for later. Life and peace is very often connected with obeying God's word. God has entrusted these priests with his word. to be able to bring it before the people. What are the priests supposed to do? In short, they're supposed to give fear and awe, fear and awe. Those, to me, maybe you know exactly what that means. I think they are somewhat nebulous. So I transposed them to honor and obedience. The priests are supposed to give honor and obedience to God. Trevor, what does that even mean, though? I would like more details about this honor and obedience. Well, guess what? The text explains this in verse number 6 and seven. I'm gonna read it again and then summarize it. True instruction was in his mouth. And no wrong was found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of the priest should guard knowledge, and the people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of host. Let me summarize it in 3 things. A priest is supposed to teach God's word rightly. They're supposed to walk in a manner of peace and justice, indeed they're supposed to help others to repent. And this, they're very similar to priests or to prophets. They are messengers of God. Going back to the question, how do we honor God? How do we honor God? God defines obedience as a godly walk and talk that results in helping others to repent from sin? Or I'm going to say it differently, I would say. We honor God by doing what he has called us to do. Teach right. Do write, and encourage others to repentance. Teach right, do right, encourage others to repentance. I had a really silly illustration, but I thought it was too silly. So ask me later about it if you want to hear it. I think one of the 1st times I gave a message, they didn't give me a time limit. And after about an hour and a half, the pastor was like, Let's wrap it up. So, let's wrap it up. If you skipped out last week. You were like, you know what? It was really sunny. I liked last week, you weren't here, or maybe you just weren't around. You may be thinking to yourself, oh, oh, Trevor. Oh, man. You were this close, Trevor. This close. I almost... applied that to my eye without thinking, Trevor. Ah. But I got the Trump card for you, Trevor. I'm not a priest. Whoa! Freedom! Oh, ho! Nothing for me. I can live anyway. I want to now. Let me tell you a story. When I was younger, I was in a class, and the professor talked about the qualifications of an elder, the qualifications of a pastor. And as you probably know, there's some, you know, heavy qualifications. And I had a couple questions afterwards, so I was waiting around to talk to them, and these couple that were in the class came to the professor before me, and they were just laughing and giggling, and they were like, oh, professor, that, ooh. Those are some doozies of qualifications. We're just so excited that neither one of us are going to be pastors because I would never want to have to live that way. And the professor was like, Well, the thing is, just because you do not have to do these qualifications doesn't mean you shouldn't. Indeed, every Christian shouldn't aspire. to live in such a way that they are seeking to do these qualifications, whether it's talking about the elder qualifications in the New Testament or talking about the high standard of a priest in the Old Testament. But, I'm going to refer to the exact same pastor, our passage that Pastor Tyler did last week, because it's good. First Peter two, four, through 10, specifically verse number nine. You are called to be a holy priesthood. There, I got you. Guess what? You're priests. So maybe it does apply. Holy priesthood to God through Jesus Christ. In fact, verse 11 and 12 goes on to speak about our role as priests in a pagan world around us. Maybe think to yourself, hmm, that's interesting. What do we do with this? What do we go next? Obviously, we go to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 4. I would encourage you to turn to the book of Hebrews. In fact, I will go as far as to say, I will give everyone here bonus points. Why not? Bonus points if you turn to Hebrews chapter 4. You can redeem them at our snack area later. How about that? So Hebrews chapter number four. I'm going to read verses 14 through 16. Hebrews chapter number four, verses 14 through 16. Since then, we, Christians, have a great high priest, who has passed through the heavens. Jesus. The Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who, in every respect, has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help and time of need. I tell you what. In a, in a group this large, there is very possibility that some of you have been hurt by leadership. You have been hurt by someone who has power. Maybe even someone who had power or authority in a church setting. I'm here to say, Jesus is a better high priest. He is a better priest, he is a better high priest. Those priests back there, they sinned, they were terrible, they did wrong. I'm one of the deacons here. I tell you what, I don't know how, I don't know when, but I'm going to fail you one day. Jesus. Never fails. He never sins. Adam and Eve sinned. Jesus. does not, did not sin, we can rely on Jesus. He will not let us down. The Bible says that God, in his wisdom, in his mercy, in his love, he sent his son, Jesus. to not just live a perfect life, to die, to die from my sin, to die, in my place, to pay for all the things that I have done. to be my substitute, to do for me what I could not do for myself. And the Bible says, if I repent, And trust in Jesus that I will have everlasting life. Jesus is a great high priest, indeed a better priest. But since we're right here, in the book of Hebrews, chapter number four, let's skip up to verse number six. Sense, therefore, it remains for some to inherit it, it being rest. And those who formerly received the good news, failed to enter because of disobedience, there are people who have heard the gospel, and they've rejected the gospel, and they said, nope, I'm going to do it my way. Again, he, that's God, appoints a certain day today, each and every one of us here as a last day that God has appointed for us. Saying through David so long afterwards, and the words already quoted that Psalm 95, in my humble opinion, the best psalm. Today. Today, if you hear his voice, you guys have heard his voice. If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Do not harden your hearts. We have a couple points of application. I'm not gonna linger super long, but you can write them down. God loves me. God loves me. Do I love? Do I honor? Do I obey God? Does my walk and talk represent someone who loves God? Number two. How often do I take it to heart? What areas of my life am I in danger of causing others to stumble? Am I honest? In my home life? Am I honest like Daniel? In my work life. Three. Do I guard God's word in my life? Do I know God's word? Do I want to know God's word? Am I eager to obey it and to treat it seriously? Or, number four, do I use God's word with partiality? Do I have a tendency not to call sin out because I fear that I might be awkward? I have a fear of man. Or do I have a tendency? This may sound silly, and it is a little silly, but it's very serious. Because I've met a lot of people who struggle with this. Am I acting like a southern guy in a rom-com? You know what I'm talking about? You know? He always has a bit of an accent, and you always say something like, man, I love God. I would love to commit adultery later too. And you're like, That's not how a Christian's supposed to be. But it seems like half the rom-coms, that's exactly how it says we're supposed to be. Or the literal meaning of those, the priests in Malachi, am I not willing to correct those powerful people who have abused their power? Last call. Last call. Honor the Lord with your walk, and your talk. Honor the Lord with your walk and your talk. I had a, But I was very young, very young. I don't even remember how old. certainly less than 10 years old. I remember hearing a sermon from an old timey preacher. Trevor, what's an old timey preacher. An old- timey preacher back in the day was one who learned how to preach before microphones got invented. So they were always yelling, yelling, yelling. And I remember this guy. He gave this application, and it confused me, but I'm going to give it to you now. He said this. He was like, oh, oh. He was rather portly, kind of like me. And he said, Never. Trust. A fat nurse, a skinny cook. Or a cussing preacher. And that seared into my brain. I had no idea what he was talking about at the time. But I had a very long time to think about it. And what he meant was this. Do you really hold to what you're pushing on other people? Do you really hold? Do you really believe, do you really do what you tell other people you should be doing? In the years I came up with another one. Would you ever listen to the advice of a dentist that had the worst breath that you could possibly imagine? Raise your hand if you have bad breath. No, don't do that. I would not. I'm gonna leave you with this. It is often attributed to this man, that he said something along these lines. That's the famous. Activist, pacifist, Gandhi. He said, you know what? I love Jesus. I like Jesus' teaching. India would probably be willing. to follow Jesus. If it were only not. For Christians. Let's not that be the case in us. Father. You are good to us. You are good to me. You have given me your word. You've given me the Holy Spirit and salvation. I pray for my own life. that I would be able to be convicted by this message. I pray for everyone here that we would be convicted by this message. and be able to walk and talk in a manner that is honoring to you. We can give you the praise for this. Amen.

Numbers 6:22–27 Hebrews 4 · chapter mention Hebrews 4 · chapter mention