Profaning The Sacrifice Of Christ (part 2) - [Malachi 1:6-14]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Well, it was probably about 42 years ago. I got my favorite piece of candy, that is a

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Reese's peanut butter cup. And, you know, the little mini ones, there's no sense biting them in half because you can fit the whole thing in your mouth.

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And for whatever reason, I just took a Reese's peanut butter cup and I took a bite of it and then for some odd reason looked at it and I could see a worm going like this.

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So I finished it off. Of course, it was a manufacturing mistake and they didn't mean to do that, of course.

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I'm wondering if you had some friends and family over for a big dinner, maybe an executive, maybe someone in the government, and you thought, you know what, we're only going to serve them food with mealworms in them.

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We're only going to serve food that's rotten. We're going to go to the day -old bakery and make sure we serve food to them.

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What would you think of those kind of people? Well, of course, we would all be appalled. In the book of Malachi, that exact thing was happening but worse.

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Let's get the lame sacrifices, the blind sacrifices, the sacrifices with, to use language of Moses, scabs and eczema, and let's give that not to people, not to the government, but let's give that to the

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Lord. I wonder what the Lord's response would be. Let's take our Bibles and turn to the book of Malachi and find out.

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The book of Malachi. Malachi is a fiery preacher. It's almost like you need a little relief as you sit underneath his preaching because he burns for the glory of God and he's confrontive and he's very illustrative in his language.

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And here's what he's after. Since God is so holy, since God is so transcendent, since God is so great, our worship should reflect that very greatness of God.

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In other words, our worship should be of our strength, of our soul, of our mind.

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We should put everything in it for the Lord Jesus Christ. Only the best will do when it comes to worshiping

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God. Only the best will do. And Malachi, when he sees the priests have an attitude of kind of a, you know, that'll do, least amount will do.

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He burns for the glory of God. Only the best will do when it comes to worship.

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And so although we're going to look at Malachi's kind of scuds to Judah, Israel, it'll be good for us today to look through this and we can ask ourselves the question, ask yourself the question, when

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I worship the Lord, what's my attitude? Only the best for the Lord? Only the absolute best will do?

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Can't cut any corners? God is so great. I am so thankful for his saving grace.

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I'm so thankful for the Son's work of being an advocate in my place. Only the best will do.

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When it comes to time, energy, money, only the best will do.

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Sadly for these people in Malachi, they even started off by questioning the love of God.

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Do you see it in chapter 1, verse 2? God says, I've loved you. How have you loved us?

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And then God goes on to describe through Malachi how the electing love of God is shown towards Israel.

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Jacob, have I loved? Esau, I have hated. And now in verses 6 through 14, the tables turned.

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First it was God, you don't really love us. And now it's God asking the questions. You don't really love me, do you?

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You mean to tell me that if you offer these kind of rotten, polluted sacrifices, that really shows love for me?

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And so we started asking some questions last week and we'll pick up the rest of the questions today designed to help you with your worship.

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So it's not just routine, not just mundane, not just rote.

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How do you have robust worship? Using Malachi as a backdrop because what's good for them is certainly good for us.

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Questions designed to help your worship be robust and not routine. Let's have a little bit of a view and we'll get into some newer questions a little bit later.

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Question 1 we looked at last week, do you honor God as father? Do you honor

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God as father? Do you see in verse 6 of Malachi chapter 1, as a son honors his father and a servant his master, if I then am a father, where is my honor?

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And so like a good preacher, he uses an argument from the lesser to the greater. A fortiori argument where you say, you know what?

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It's normal for a son to honor a dad. It's normal for a daughter to honor a mother.

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I could ask you the question, if you're a dad, do you like it when your children honor you?

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Do you like it when they dishonor you? It's just normal, it's natural. We would even understand that unbelievers would get this normal, regular attitude of sons honor their father.

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And for Israel, they have been told that God is their father.

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Jeremiah 31, with weeping they shall come and by supplication I will lead them.

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I will make them walk by streams of water on a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel.

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Israel, I'm your father and you're going to offer me these sacrifices, a three -legged goat and a blind sheep?

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You wouldn't do that for your regular father. That's not an attitude of esteem and honor and submission and obedience.

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A father wants honor and the heavenly father, how much more? Ephesians 6, the verses that every parent immediately tries to teach their children upon their being able to speak.

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Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with a promise so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

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If you have a dad or a mom, you should give them honor. And so God the Father says,

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Israel, you are a son to me. Give me honor. And of course for us, we have God as father.

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We're adopted as sons into his kingdom. And if you think about it, even Jesus, he submitted himself to his parents.

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Luke 2, and he went down to them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them.

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And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. How do you treat a parent?

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With obedience, submission, and respect. And Malachi's listeners didn't do that at all.

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Secondly, we ask the question to try to root out any frozen hearts of worship that we might have and struggle with.

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Do you fear God as master or Lord? Do you honor God as father? Do you fear

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God as Lord or master? This is a good motivation. Verse 6, and a servant his master.

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And if I'm a master, where's my fear? I mean, back in chapter 6, you want to give your father honor.

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And honor is a word that means weight. It could mean glory, but it means weight. There's a heaviness.

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And here, despise means light. It's just a trivial thing. It's just a light thing.

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It doesn't really matter. That's not what a servant should do for a master.

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And even for New Testament believers. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I, what? Say. Question 3, we looked at verses 7 through 9.

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Do you honor God as father? Do you fear God as Lord? Here's a good question you can ask about the ministry that the

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Lord has given you here at the church. If you worked at your job with the same intensity you serve the

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Lord and His church, would you get promoted or fired? Would you get promoted or would you get laid off?

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So you could just kind of take stock with your ministry here at the church. And it says in verses 7 through 9, with a highlight in verse 8.

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Do you see it? Present that to your governor. Present what? Blind animals, verse 8.

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Lame, sick, verse 7, polluted food. Give that to your governor.

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Will he accept you or show you favor? Will he hire you or fire you, in other words?

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You would give greater respect to an earthly master, wouldn't you? Yes, because you know better.

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But instead, Judah, you're giving the worst to the Lord. That doesn't seem to make sense.

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You're presenting defiled food. I mean, can you imagine?

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Sorry for all the detailed kind of worms in food and all that, but since you're on a roll, you've got to go for it.

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I mean, just think. You've got some food.

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It's full of maggots. You think, you know, I've got a friend coming over, and we're going to just do everything we can just for the best.

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It's like my buddy back in Kentucky in my doctoral program. I remember he was confessing some of his sins to us as a group, and he said, one day

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I got home, and he said, I was so hungry. And he said,

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I was so hungry, and my wife was making my favorite meal of all time. I couldn't believe it.

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I was just so hungry. That's how we talked. You have squirrel boils in Kentucky, too, but that's another story.

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And he said, she said then to me, you know what? I'm making the favorite meal, our family favorite meal, because, oh, the

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Jones family, they just had a new baby, and we're taking it over to their house to present them this meal as a ministry.

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You think, oh, he said I was so mad. First he said I was hungry, then I was mad. What if you said, you know, instead of the best, instead of, you know, you're special with a red plate, you say, you know what?

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There's somebody in the church. They've got a need. They just had a baby. Let's go bring them over a meal. And where can we get that old meat, that kind of,

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I think if we scrape off a few of the maggots, it'll be fine. Nobody will notice. As my father would say, they don't eat much.

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I would not think of giving maggot food to anyone. And here's

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Malachi. I mean, it gets worse in chapter 2, believe me, the way he deals with Judah.

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I don't want your maggot food. I don't want your maggot service. I don't want your lame, crippled, diseased offerings.

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I don't want them. You wouldn't give it to your earthly master. Why would you give it to me? Of course, for Bethlehem Bible Church, I don't think we do that.

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Maybe some of you do. I don't know. But it's a good gut check. Lord, why do I do what

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I do? How much time and effort do I put into ministry? Is it just kind of tacked on?

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Or is it, you know, I really, I serve in the nursery because I'm serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

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If Jesus were here, this is the way I would serve Him. This is the way I play music.

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It's for the Lord. If nobody else notices, I want the Lord to notice. How do we preach? How do we teach?

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What kind of offering do we give? Of course, back in those days, you wanted to give a perfect offering.

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An animal that's a perfect substitute. And here's what you would say. You take an animal and you bring it to the priest and you would say,

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Here's the animal that I want to have. Accept this offering in my place. Accept this offering for me.

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I've sinned and so kill the offering instead of me. And no one would rightly think, who's thinking biblically,

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Do you know what? Let's bring, as chapter 1 verse 7 says, polluted food.

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No one would think in chapter 1 verse 8 to bring blind animals.

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That's not a sacrifice. That's evil. Deuteronomy 15 says, but if it has any defect, we're talking about a sacrifice, such as lameness or blindness or any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to the

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Lord your God. Leviticus, those that are blind or fractured or maimed or having a running sore or eczema or scabs, you shall not offer to the

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Lord, nor make them an offering by fire on the altar of the Lord. This is not how you make sacrifices.

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Why? Because ultimately, we're pointing to the sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ, who's perfect. I want to worship, acknowledging

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God, your true worth. So I'm wondering, the ministry that you have here, if we had a little year -end review, would you get fired or would you get promoted?

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That's the idea. Question 4, found in verse 10 of Malachi chapter 1, questions to prod you to make sure your worship is from the heart and not hypocritical.

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Do you honor God as Father? Do you fear God as Lord? Would you get promoted or fired if it was a secular job?

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Question 4, do you know it's better not to worship than to worship sinfully? It's better not to worship than to worship wrongly.

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Look at verse 10. Here's basically God through Malachi just saying, stop.

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Just stop that. Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the doors.

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Where's someone, just one of you, would you please just shut the doors so we don't have to accept these kind of bad offerings that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain.

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I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hands.

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It's better to stop offering sacrifices than make them insincere or make them hypocritical.

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I think in the New Testament church, is there a time not to worship? Yes, I can think of one, 1 Corinthians 11, whoever therefore regarding the

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Lord's Supper, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the

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Lord. 1 Corinthians 11, 27. There's a time where you say, you know, it's better not to worship than to worship wrongfully, than to worship sinfully, than to worship when these other areas in my life aren't cleaned up.

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And all this, what does it do, congregation? It drives us to repentance. It drives us to think differently.

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It drives us to say, Lord, that's right. I want to make excuses for my lame worship, but I don't have any excuse.

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You deserve the best, and so Lord, would you forgive me? I'm thankful that the Lord Jesus Christ, He perfectly worshipped you, and I stand in Him, thank you for your forgiveness, and from this day forth,

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Lord, I want to offer things that are pleasing to you. You've given me this body to serve you, and I want to serve you with my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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And I was thinking about this a little bit earlier this week. Sometimes it's better just not to worship. Is there a time we just want to close the doors here?

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That's a good question. When do you close the doors of Bethlehem Bible Church? And just say, you know what? Is there one person who won't just shut the doors here so we don't have to worship like this anymore?

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Where's the one person that would do it? Where's the Phinehas of the world? Why would we close Bethlehem Bible Church?

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Government persecution? Would we close then? No. They might close the doors, but they can't stop the church.

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How about if all the leadership dies in an airplane crash? Would we close the church then?

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You know, I like to think positive, happy thoughts and stuff. You know, that's what I do. What if there's a moral crisis in leadership?

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Well, you don't stop the church for that either. You discipline that person out. What if the church shrinks to 30 people?

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Do you close the doors then? What if giving plummets? What if no denomination will accept us?

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When do you close a church? You close a church when the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice, is not proclaimed any longer. And it just becomes a club.

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It becomes a religious club. It just becomes a good old boys and good old girls club. There's a time to close a church.

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When they don't want to focus on the mediator and advocate, Jesus Christ, then it's time to close the church.

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But there is a time to close a church. And to my sadness and to much of people's shame, most of the largest churches in the

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USA today, I hope they close. The sooner, the better. If they won't repent and preach the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the largest churches in our country, starting in Houston and in Saddleback, need to shut their doors.

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Question five. Question five. Have you forgotten that what you do affects others?

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Question five. Have you forgotten that what you do affects others? Here's what's going on in verses 11 and 12 in Malachi 1.

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Hey Israel, hey Judah, did you know later on Gentiles are going to come and worship?

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Do you know that you've been called to be a light for other nations? And you're going to be an evangelistic tool for other nations?

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And do you know they're going to come alongside after you and they're going to worship? Let's take a look at this and see how applicable it is.

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Remember, you don't say, I need to make the Bible relevant. The Bible is relevant.

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How is it relevant is a good question. So let's see, since we are of the same kind, fallen people as back in Malachi's day, is there a good lesson for us to learn as well?

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These Israelites, they knew better. And look at this prophecy the ESV Bible says of Gentile worship.

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Verse 11, for from the rising of the sun to its setting, by the way, that's a wonderful phrase found in the

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Bible very often when it talks about end times, my name will be great among the nations.

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See, it's not great now among you folks in Judah, but it will be great. And in every place, incense will be offered to my name.

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And unlike a polluted maggot infested offering and a pure offering, for my name will be great among the nations, says the

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Lord of hosts. Hey, Israel, he calls

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Judah generally Israel here, but hey, Israel, hey, people of God, there are other people who are looking, who are following, and my name is going to be great.

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Does that motivate you or demotivate you? It's supposed to motivate you. Now, some think this points to a millennial kingdom, a future in grafting.

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It doesn't really matter what it points to. There are other people who are going to come and worship, and other people are watching you.

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Foreign nations will worship the covenant -keeping redemptive

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God. But it says in verse 12, but you profane it when you say that at the

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Lord's table is polluted, and its fruit, that is, its food may be despised.

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Other people are on their way to worship. Question six, question six.

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If you're bored worshiping God, is the problem really with you or with God?

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I mean, this is, it only ramps up in chapter two, but this is about as pushy as it gets.

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Verse 13, I mean, I hate to even read these words, but you say, what a weariness this is.

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I'm tired of worship, and you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering.

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Shall I accept that from your hand, says the Lord? You know, I'm so full of just drudgery and boredom and weariness.

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It's time to go to the temple. Let's go find some roadkill. That'll do. Just something that's killed on the side of the road.

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Now, when I ride a bicycle, I try to ride Christianly. It's a good thing to do.

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So, how does riding Christianly manifest itself? Well, I clip in and say, today's the day

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I could die, because, again, I think happy thoughts, of course, all the time. But I'm thinking, this could be the day.

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Also, Mike, when you're riding, just look at the stars, look at the sun, look at the moon, look at outside, look at all, just everything that God has made, and just say,

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God, you're just a great God, praising God for general revelation. But I also ride

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Christianly when I ride past dead animals, and I've ridden by huge, huge, what do they call the large pigs?

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Boars, thank you. In Germany, I mean they were huge, dead on the side of the road.

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I've ridden by chipmunks, squirrels. One time a squirrel ran over and just jumped up on my leg.

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I'm thinking, what do you do there? I've seen dead cats, dead dogs.

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I mean, it's just dead. And when I ride Christianly, I think to myself, what kind of worship does my

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Lord deserve? In light of what He's done for me, in and through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, He's after me, right?

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Romans chapter 12, a living sacrifice. He wants me all in. He wants everything I have.

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It's not roadkill. Well, you know what? I'll just give Him the minimum. Every time I see a dead animal, it's, you know, do

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I just give Him the dead sacrifice or the living sacrifice? And these

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Israelites are basically saying this, we're tired of worshiping you, God. I'm bored.

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How wearisome this is. Do you notice in verse 13? You snort at it. It's like you look down your nose and you just kind of go,

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I have to be careful when you do that. You know what? I could care less about you.

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Time could be better spent somewhere else. Why would I go to church when I can spend better time at home?

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I'm just bored. That's the idea. I mean, it is surprising these people are still alive at the time.

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Disdainfully sniffing. Worship is hardship. Sunday worship with the Lord's saints, it's difficult.

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I don't like it. My mind's at the office. My mind's at home. My mind's on the game, snorting.

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And remember, it's probably a response. In Isaiah 1, God says,

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I'm weary of bearing with them. God says, I get tired of that kind of worship. And it's almost like they knew that part of the

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Bible. Don't you tell us you're weary full of weary God.

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We're the ones. Bored. I'm so bored with worship. How different King David was when he said in 2

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Samuel 24, I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me what?

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Nothing. God is so great. Do you see it in verse 14? How could you be bored with God?

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First, he says, cursed be the cheat who has brought a male in his flock and vows it, and yet sacrifices it to the Lord what is blemished.

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But he says in verse 14b, for I'm a great king. How could you be bored in front of the king?

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Says the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies, the Lord of angels. My name will be feared among the nations.

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Bored and feared can't exist together. You say, God is, he's boring.

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We have a little thing in our family when the kids used to say, we're bored. They knew that was almost like the worst thing they could say because being bored is not a reflection on the parents, it's a reflection on the person.

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I'm bored. No, God is so great. Sovereign. So if you say, well,

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I'm bored with worship. I'm bored with reading the Bible. All this, friends, is just a design to get you to say,

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Lord, please forgive me. That's the wrong way to think. I know there's forgiveness found in Christ Jesus.

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Cleanse me. Wash me. I'm thankful that I have a substitute Jesus. And he wasn't bored with worship.

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He wasn't sniffing his nose, snorting. This is so boring.

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By the way, just a little flash into heaven. Do you think that kind of language is indicative of what heaven will be like?

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I'm bored. Don't the unbelievers say that? I don't want to go to heaven and walk around, you know, on some kind of cloud with a harp my whole life.

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I'm just thinking, I'm going to sniff my nose at you. That's wrong thinking.

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God of the universe. Here's Isaiah for a sneak peek. He sees God. Holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. There was one thing Isaiah wasn't. Bored.

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Think about Job as he understood who God was. Think about Peter in the boat with Jesus. Who could be around Jesus for two seconds and be bored?

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You might be convicted. You might be thankful. You might be full of praise, but you'd never be bored.

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And think about heaven forever and ever and ever to see the Lord Jesus Christ in a body in heaven, worshiping and praising

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Him. There might be a lot of things not in heaven, like sin, like demons, like sinful people who haven't had their sins forgiven.

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But you won't find any boredom in heaven. I'm so bored with worship. So what did they do?

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Here's what Israel did. We know better than to say some of these things out loud.

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So we'll give a little bit. We'll serve a little bit. But our hearts are far.

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It's like a marriage where the couple's together. They're in the same house, but they don't really love one another.

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They don't have the feelings of love. They don't do the sacrificial things one to another. And it's by name only.

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What kind of marriage would you like to be in? By name only? Or like husband loving the wife and the wife responding?

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And so these people, back in Israel's day, they knew enough to give a sacrifice. They didn't say, you get no sacrifice.

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I'll give you a sacrifice, God, but it's not going to be my best and it's not going to cost me. So the rest of the time this morning,

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I'd like to charge you to think about the sacrifice of Christ rightly.

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Why? Well, we don't give sacrifices anymore. We don't have a lamb.

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We don't have a goat. We don't take doves. We don't take some flower and offer it as some kind of offering.

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We have no wave offerings anymore. We have no wheat offerings anymore. So there's no way we can say, you know what?

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Okay, Mike, you're right. I won't give any more goats to the Lord with three legs. Convicted.

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Won't ever do it again. But you can think of the Lord's sacrifice wrongly and profane

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His sacrifice by thinking about it wrongly. So let me give you some areas that you want to avoid regarding the sacrifice of Christ.

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And so you think about it in an honoring fashion versus a dishonoring fashion. Profaning the sacrifice of Jesus is awful, so let's not do that.

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And let me give you a few ways you don't want to profane the Lord's sacrifice. I want you to think about it biblically and correctly.

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Number one, I want you to think about the sacrifice of Christ in a way that includes the love of the

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Father. So put negatively, don't think about the love of the Son and the anger of the

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Father. Let's take a look at John 3 .16 for a second. Take your Bibles, turn to John 3 .16.

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Here's what I'm after in this part of the message. There's a way to think wrongly about the sacrifice of Jesus.

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I don't want you to think wrongly about it. And here's one of the number one ways people think wrongly about the sacrifice of Jesus.

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They think the Father and the Son have some kind of adversarial relationship. And the

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Son is loving and the Father is angered. He's mad. And this radically wrong concept is the

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Son's a Son who loves people and the Father is reluctantly, bitterly, angrily wanting to just judge people all the time.

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But the Son can buy off the Father's love for the elect, for the bride of Christ, by dying.

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That's an awful way to profane the sacrifice of the Lord. One man said, there's no sweetness in the

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Father at all towards us but that which is purchased at the high price of the blood of Jesus.

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If you think about the Father as just angry and the Son does something in a way to win over the

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Father's love at Calvary, you have profaned the sacrifice of Christ. John 3 .16.

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For God, by the way, that's the Father. How do we know that? You'll just keep reading, you'll see.

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For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

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For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through Him.

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That is not a reluctant God. That is not a bitter Father. That is not a God that needs to be persuaded.

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Look at the origination of God's love is the Father. The Father so loves the world.

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And He sends the Son from incarnation in His entire mission up to sacrificial death and substitutionary atonement and resurrection.

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It's the Father's love. You think Trinitarianly, that's why when you study John Owen, he thinks in a

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Trinitarian fashion. The Son loves, yes. The Spirit loves, yes. And the Father loves. It's the origination of the love of God found in John, the fourth

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Gospel. What's the reason why God sent the Son? Why did God send the Son to die for rebellious people in the world?

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Answer, He loves them. He loves them. And if you take a look at John 3 .16,

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sometimes you focus on so, like it's so wonderful, it's so great, so much.

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But every time this combination of the word for and so are found in New Testament Greek nine times, they're all translated this way.

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For God loved the world in this way. For this is the way God loved the world.

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This is the particular way. By what? Giving His Son. For God so loved the world,

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He loved the world in this way that He gave His only begotten Son. God's the initiator. He's the lover.

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He's the principal actor. And look at verse 17. He didn't send

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His Son into the world to condemn the world. That's kind of thinking like the Old Testament people. God in the

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Old Testament is a God of wrath, but thank you, Jesus finally came and He's a nice God now. This is

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God full of loving kindness, full of love not condemning the world.

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When I ask you the question, when you think of God's love, I hope you think of the Father's love, the

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Son's love, and the Spirit's love, and let's let Sinclair Ferguson speak.

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Quote, There is no gap between the love of the Father and that of the Son. Christ died for us because the

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Father loves us, not in order to induce or persuade a reluctant Father to love us.

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All the love for us that we see in Jesus is the Father's love too. Yes, it is expressed by and revealed in the death of Christ, but it is not purchased by it.

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Indeed, the Father's love, listen congregation, is antecedent to the work of Christ. The Father's love is the sine qua non of the work of Christ for us.

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And in Malachi's day, oh God, how do you love us? It's answered for us in John 3 .16,

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by the Father and eternity passed with the Son and Spirit sending the Son. Number two, don't think of the sacrifice of Christ as devoid of the

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Father's love. Number two, don't think of Christ's sacrifice as inadequate, as inadequate.

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We can't bring a goat with eczema to give to the Lord, but we can think improperly about the atonement.

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First, we could think that the Father's love is absent. Secondly, we could think, you know what, what Jesus did on the cross wasn't final, wasn't adequate.

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You say, well, why would you ever bring that up? Answer, because we live in a town, we live in a state, we live in an area of the country where 80 % of your friends would teach and have their churches teach that the death of Christ is not adequate.

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What do I mean by that? It's not adequate because you have to then, after Jesus dies for you, he died for your mortal sins, but you've got some venial sins and you've got to take care of those in purgatory.

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And the sacrifice that Jesus did on the cross isn't adequate enough, so you have to slice

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Christ weekly or daily in the mass. Let's turn our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 1 and let me remind you that the death of Christ is adequate.

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There's no further purification needed, no purgatory needed. You don't need to achieve holiness and get into heaven by having some imperfectly purified sins washed away.

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Jesus paid it all. And here's the wonderful story. It's not a story like made up, but the narrative, the drama, is

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Jesus does something and he sits down because there's no more work to be done. Is there a purification found in the

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Bible? Is there a purging found in the Bible? Well, it's only found right here and is

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Jesus shown as superior because he purifies sins. Hebrews 1, 3, when he had made purification of sins, he purged our sins, the filth of our sins, he purges by himself, of his own accord, not by bulls, not through lambs.

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He purifies. This is like 1 John 1, 7, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

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And the interesting thing, when you take a look at that verse, having made of himself is a good way to translate it. He did it.

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He is the one who died on the cross for sins and he purges all sins, past, present, future,

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Calvary, to the extent that verse 3 says he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

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And you all know, I know this because I know you've been taught. No seats and chairs in the temple.

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No seats or chairs in the tabernacle. Why? Because people keep sinning and you've got to just keep killing those animals over and over and over.

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But for Jesus, when he does the work, he sits down, no more work needed. He puts away our sins.

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He remembers our sins, no more. That's why when the Catholic Catechism says this, from their own documents, it relates to an inadequate view of the death of Christ.

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All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation.

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But after death, they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

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Vatican Council 2, page 64. The doctrine of purgatory clearly demonstrates that even when the guilt of sin has been taken away, the punishment for it may remain to be expiated or cleansed.

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Handbook of Today's Catholic, page 47. If you die in the love of God, but possess any stains of sin, such as stains that are cleansed away in a purifying process called purgatory, these stains of sin are primarily the temporal punishment due to venial or mortal sins already forgiven, but for which sufficient penance was not done during your lifetime.

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Friends, it's wrong to think of the sacrifice of Jesus as anything but adequate. He paid for our sins,

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He cleansed us, and He doesn't have to have any more sacrifices. Listen to Hebrews, chapter 10. By this we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Much more to say about that.

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Number three, and finally. I was taught in seminary that if you've run out of things to say, you just say there's much more to be said about that.

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And then they think it's true, but... I guess we can't lie in the pulpit, can we? Of course we can't. There is more to say about that.

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We might say it next week. Question three, or statement three, because I want you to think about Christ's death rightly so you don't, in your mind, offer up a sacrifice of Jesus that's not true at all.

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Make sure you think that Christ's death was necessary. Christ's death was necessary.

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Turn to Galatians chapter 2, our last passage for today. Galatians 2, Christ's death was necessary.

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Thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ's death is very important. Thinking biblically is even more important. His death was necessary.

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His death was adequate. His death was necessitated by the love of the Father, sending Him by His own love.

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And here we have Galatians chapter 2. If I were to ask you or your friends, your friends who are unbelievers, you before you were saved, how do you get to heaven?

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Most people would say, because I was... How do you know you're going to heaven? Because I'm good.

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And so is that true? Can you get to heaven by keeping the law, by being religious, by getting baptized, by going to church?

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What is needed to get us to heaven? Galatians 2 .20

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I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, Paul says, but Christ who lives in me.

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And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave

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Himself for me. Verse 21, it's very important. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, if you could get to heaven by keeping the law, if you could get to heaven by being good, then

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Christ died for no purpose. He should have just come and said, do good, be good, honor.

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And this is something called moralism. Moralism says, you don't really need the death of Christ, you just need to have some improvements in your life.

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Most of your friends, by the way, would probably think that's what we believe, because television Christianity, I hold that loosely, television

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Christianity, teaches that very thing. That's what mainstream

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Christianity teaches. Moralism, except Hebrews 11, 6 says, without faith it is impossible to please

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Him. Moralism says, you know what, let's just have these external behaviors, that's all we need.

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If you could get to heaven by just having a better life now, then you don't need Jesus to die on the cross.

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It was years ago when purpose -driven life came out, and it was said on day 9 of those 40 days of your life, it was said this, how do you make

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God smile? By the way, Noah made God smile, and so the author writes,

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God said, this guy brings me pleasure. He makes me smile. I'll start over with his family, because Noah brought pleasure to God.

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You and I are alive today. From his life we learn the five acts of worship that make God smile.

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One, love God supremely. Two, trust God completely. Three, obey God wholeheartedly.

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Four, praise God continually. Five, use your abilities. And apart from the death of Christ, apart from the work of Christ, that's just profane moralism.

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That's all it is. It's dangerous. We can sanctify ourselves. We can do good on our own. That's auto -sanctification.

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Jesus is a problem solver. He points us in the right direction. Lloyd -Jones says, I'm increasingly convinced that so much of the state of Christian church today is explained chiefly by the fact that for nearly a hundred years, the church has been preaching morality and ethics.

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It is this preaching of the good life. Be a good gentleman. As Matthew Arnold put it, has been the curse.

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Such men have shed the doctrines. They dislike any movement of atonement. They dismiss the whole notion of the miraculous and supernatural.

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And they ridicule the talk of the rebirth. Christianity to them is that which teaches a man to live a good life.

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So here's what you do. Say to yourself when you teach your children at home, say to yourself when you teach

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Sunday school and VBS, would the death of Christ be needed for this talk to work?

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For this little sharing time at VBS, do I need the death of Jesus to make this work?

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When I was a kid, I obviously ate a lot of junk food. One day

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I got these Hostess cupcakes. There's two cupcakes. I think they were chocolate, and they had a little swirl of white icing on the top.

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Hostess cupcakes. And they were good, and they were filled in the inside with some kind of icing too.

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And I took a bite, and it tasted so good. I think I ate those for breakfast in the public school, of course.

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All the homeschooler moms laugh. I took a bite of it, and it's not cakey.

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There's something hard in there, and I'm biting and I'm biting, and no, it's not a worm. I can't figure out what it is, and it's rolling around on my tongue to figure this out.

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What is in this thing? I've eaten hundreds of these, and they're not in there. And I finally take it out of my mouth, and it's a super long cut off fingernail.

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You should see your faces. Man! And for Malachi's day, it wasn't an accident.

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Let's specially make some of those, and we'll give those to God. And for our day, to take the

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Lord Jesus Christ's sacrifice and say, you know what? There's no love of the Father involved there.

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It's not adequate. More needs to be done. And it's not necessary, because I'm a pretty good person.

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It's worse than any worm, and it's worse than any piece of fingernail.

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Father, thank you for our time and your Word this morning. I would pray for these dear people that they'd think rightly about the atoning work of Jesus Christ.

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Perfect life, substitutionary death, victorious resurrection. Father, your

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Son's work in heaven will be our theme. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

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To think of the Lamb, to think of the Lion, is to think of the same person, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We know that you receive no offering, no giving, no ministry, except through the perfection of our

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Mediator, Jesus. We're thankful for that. But because we do have Jesus as a

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Mediator, I pray that you would bless our repentance as we take stock in our own lives and how we worship and how we serve and how we minister, even when no one's looking, you see.

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We're thankful that we have a Savior, Jesus, to forgive us those times where it's just rote. And I would pray that this doctrine of proper worship in light of the cross would change everything about Bethlehem Bible Church, how we treat one another, how we prepare

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Sunday school lessons, how we preach, how we sing, how we give. Father, we're thankful that you use these hard words of Scripture, even in Malachi, to soften our hearts.

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We want to have soft hearts. Lord, keep our hearts soft through your word. In Jesus' name, amen.