Malachi 3:6-15 Looking for Profits

Finances as a Metaphor for the Heart

To the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filseck preaches from his series, Dead Religion, taking us through the book of Malachi. Let's listen in.

In a broken world that's full of greed, scarcity, hoarding, I mean, there's a TV show about that, right? Poverty, we've got all kinds of issues. Broken humanity has a broken relationship toward resources, money, and profit.

In our culture, by the way, I think we all know that we would celebrate an honest person who starts an honest business and makes an honest profit, right? Are we a culture that celebrates that? Do you guys agree with me on that?

We are, unless they get too wealthy, and then our culture turns on them and calls them evil because they've obviously had to abuse somebody to get that wealthy, I don't know. But in our text this morning, God is going to mix the spiritual realm and the financial realm in a way that hopefully identifies for all of us and calls us all out on our propensity to be very self-centered in the way that we view our finances.

I think many of us are. And the way we view finances and what we do with our resources is at least a reasonable metaphor for our spiritual attitude toward God. Now, you guys have been here, those of you that have been here since the very beginning and some of you that have been along for the ride, some of you are here just maybe new, you know that I don't talk about finances very often, right?

And yet, I want to be faithful to the text, and we're going to talk about finances this morning. We're going to talk about finances because God's word addresses it. And we're going through Malachi, and Malachi is going to tackle that for us.

And I think it's a very important topic for our souls. It's something that has to do with our spirit. This is not going to turn into a health, wealth, prosperity kind of message. It's not going to be give, give, give.

It's not going to be pad my bank account. It's not going to be make sure that the church has all the money and all of that. That's not what it's about. But it is about a healthy relationship with our God in regard to the blessings that he has given to us.

All that we have comes from him, and so how does he want us to relate to him on that level? Near the end of our text, the religious people of Malachi's day are going to literally ask this question. What is the prophet?

In other words, what do I have to gain in keeping your commands, God? What's the gain in it? What do I serve to gain by doing what you've asked? And we're going to see that part of what he asks is literally tithing.

Part of what he asks of his people in the Old Testament in this text is a giving of 10 to the cause of God in their community. And they're saying, so what do we serve to gain from that? And in the context of tithing and giving back to God's work, I think many in our culture may ask the exact same question to him.

So what's in it for me? So as the band comes, let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Malachi chapter 3. We're going to be looking at verses 3, verses 6 through 15 in Malachi chapter 3.

And if you don't have a Bible or means to navigate to the text of the Bible on your lap, could you do me a favor and just raise your hand? And somebody would like to bring you a copy of the Word of God.

So anybody without a Bible here, right up here, there's one. Thanks John. And then a recast. Remember that as we read this, I don't know if you realize how special it is that we have the opportunity to read God's very words to us.

This is a privilege that was not afforded to the majority of people in history. All the way up into the Middle Ages, people didn't have access to this. Only the priests, only the clergy. I would be the only one in that Middle Ages context to hold the Bible, to get a chance to study it and to read it.

So this is a privilege that we have each week to take in what the Almighty has to say to us. So follow along as we read Malachi 3, verses 6 through 15. For I the Lord do not change, therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, how shall I return? Will a man rob God?

Yet you are robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed you in your tithes and contributions? You are cursed with a curse for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

I will rebuke the devourer for you so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord, but you say, how have we spoken against you? You have said it is vain to serve the Lord. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?

And now we call the arrogant blessed, evildoers, not only prosper, but they put God to the test and they escape. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word that addresses so many avenues, so many components, so many parts of our lives and even in this indictment on finances and the way that we look at and view finances, we still see a heart issue here of returning to you, a heart issue of honoring you and recognizing the covenant that you have made with us of grace, Father, for all who are gathered here in your name that have been saved and have been brought into the family of Christ, that you want our hearts.

You desire for us to be first and foremost changed internally so that these external things would take place. I'm convinced you don't even really want our money. You want our hearts and you want our hearts to be so in love with you that money is not an issue with us.

And so, Father, I pray that you would be moving in us to identify and to clarify, to encourage those who need encouragement, to convict those who need conviction and, Father, that you would bring us in line and, Father, anybody in this room who has not turned to you or needs to return to you, Father, that that would be a result of this message this morning, Father, of your speaking by your spirit into our hearts.

And Father, as we have an opportunity to lift up our voices in song to you, Father, I pray that you would allow the band to fade into the background as we take in who you are and recognize your awesome glory, your majesty, how high and how worthy you are of all sacrifices.

And Father, that you did indeed sacrifice for us and have brought us into your family through the blood of Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that I pray. Amen. Just like normal, I encourage you to get comfortable.

Remember, if you need any more coffee, juice, or donuts, you can take advantage of those up here. If you need to stretch out, feel free to do that up in the back. I recognize that those seats are not that comfortable, and so if you need to get up at any time.

But the main reason for me even saying any of that is to really keep our focus on God's word over the next half an hour or so. So if you could make sure that your Bibles are open to Malachi chapter 3, verses 6 -15.

I know we read that earlier, but having it open allows you to reference it and see it. I'm going to reference it throughout the rest of this time, and so check that out, and that way you see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word, and that's the main point.

Think about a couple questions here. What does God think about your money? Does God need your money? Would He suffer at all if you gave Him nothing? Could you be successful without generosity? I'm convinced that God has some concern for your pocketbook, for your wallet, and yet I agree to some degree with John Wesley who identifies that, identified that often, and this is a quote, begin quote, the last part of a man to be converted is his wallet, end quote.

I don't completely agree with that statement as John Wesley stated it. I agree in part, and I think that money is often a hindrance to coming to faith. I mean, I've talked with people who have actually declared to me openly, when is the part where you ask for my wallet?

I had somebody ask me that when we were starting Recast Church. When are you going to ask for my wallet? When do we get to that part? Unbeliever, not in the kingdom, I'm just hanging out with them and they're wondering when does that, when does that begin?

When do you, when do you ask for money? So you can imagine, have you ever encountered that in the world? Have you ever encountered people who believe that all that the church is about is money? So that's one of the reasons that I pull back and recoil a little bit from talking about it as openly as I'm going to be this morning, and yet I am not going to recoil at all from what God's Word has to say about it.

I just don't want to make it a topic every week. I want to let God's Word guide us and direct us, and when His Word addresses it, that's the appropriate time for us to have this conversation. But I believe in disagreeing subtly with John Wesley, and he's probably a lot more intelligent than me, so I'm kind of walking on eggshells, you know, disagreeing with him, but I do think that God's focus is never on a person's wallet.

That's not what he's shooting for from you. That's not what he wants from you. That's not what he needs from you. That's not what he desires from you. What he wants first and foremost is your heart. What he wants is your heart.

He wants your love, and he wants you to experience his love. God is not gunning for a conversion of your wallet. He is out for a conversion of your heart, and expects that with the conversion of your heart, the wallet will follow.

You get it? He wants your heart. Carrying things forward from last week, the judgment, the refining, the cleansing fire that we talked about, God starts off our text this week with a statement of grace that sounds quite severe.

It's a severe grace. It is a grace to us, but he says this, simply, because he is faithful, he says, for I do not change. Because I am faithful. Only because God keeps his promises. Only because he is unchanging in his covenant, that is why his people have not been consumed.

Now, how many of you are glad that you haven't been consumed? You haven't been consumed by the fires, okay? I'm glad for that, and at the same time, he's here openly declaring the only reason you haven't been consumed is because of his faithfulness, because he is unchanging.

When he makes a promise, he keeps it. How many of you acknowledge that you've done something worthy of punishment by God? As you've studied God's word, you've seen in the pages some kind of an indictment on your own heart?

I think all of us would agree with that, and only because of his faithfulness do we continue to live and breathe his air. Why is God patient with sin? Why does he stand by us even when we fail and make messes, even as believers?

Because he is true to his promises. Why will there be no condemnation for those who are in with Christ Jesus? Why is there therefore now no condemnation? Because he will not change in his commitment to the salvation of those who are in Christ.

He's faithful. He's faithful. He's faithful. We need to remember that in our darkest moments and from the mountaintops and from the deepest valleys. We need to remember the faithfulness of God that will keep us going, that will keep us encouraged that he does indeed love us.

Many of us can testify by personal experience. Some of you are like me. The bulk of your sin, the bulk of the evil that you have committed has come after you gave your life to Christ. I was saved when I was eight years old.

I had not done a whole lot of evil things before that. I joked in a sermon a couple of years ago about how I was not cooking meth on an Easy Bake oven when I was eight years old. I mean, I wasn't that, you know, I mean in the world standards, I wasn't that evil.

And the bulk of my sin has been committed after. And so I need to constantly turn to God's faithfulness and trust in him to improve and to grow. And in verse seven, the same things could be said for the Israelites in the time of Malachi.

The bulk of their sin had come after they have entered into a covenant relationship with their God. The bulk of their sin has come after that. They have, according to the text, they have turned aside from the commands of God from the days of their fathers.

In other words, it was kind of like one generation did pretty well in honoring God, then another generation slid, and then another generation slid, and they have fallen away, turned aside from the covenant.

They've had a generational slide away from obedience to God. And the technical language, by the way, in verse seven of turned aside, the Hebrew word that's used there is language for forsaking a covenant or a contract.

It's when you foreclose on your house. It's when you break a marriage vow. It's when you no longer keep a covenant or a promise that you have made. You promised to take your kid to the ballgame and the summer went by and you never took him to a ballgame.

You broke a promise. You said that something was going to happen and it didn't. It's that kind of language. They haven't, in other words, kept up their end of the deal with God. And so notice that the main call in our text, it's a beautiful call, it's an amazing call, but it's the main call in our text this morning and it's in verse seven, and it really is here in verse seven in chapter three, the central call of the entire book of Malachi right here in our text this morning.

It says simply this, return to me, says the king of the armies of heaven. Return to me, come back to me, come home, says God, come home. Like the father of the prodigal son who has an open door for his lost son who went away and squandered his wealth and spent it on prostitutes and wild living and not just buying prostitutes for himself, buying drugs for his friends and doing all kinds of terrible things.

He's got an open door saying, come back, come back. God is eager to catch sight of his son or daughter who would humble themselves and come running home for mercy. Return to me, says the Lord. Come home, come home, come home for mercy, and the promise is glorious.

It's not just come home, but it's if you will do that one thing and return to God, he will return to you. Do you see it in the text? Look at it with your own eyes, whether this is a first time return to God for salvation or a return after a period of waywardness for someone who is already in with Christ and has fallen away and has gone out into that wild living and God's call is the same, return, come back to me, come to me.

Return to him and he will run to you. But the people of Israel, here in this text, I hope that you're somewhat moved by that call. Regardless of where you're at, I hope there's something in your heart that appeals to you that the almighty God would call out to you, to everybody in this room and say, come to me, come home.

Not for judgment, not out of his anger and out of his wrath, but for mercy, for his love, come home. But the people of Israel were unmoved by what ought to be a moving scene and ought to evoke some emotion in our hearts and God is offering hope and help to his people.

And he says, come home and they say, how? How do we come home? How do we return to you? How shall we return, the text says. How do we get home? I think this is probably a genuine question. I think it's a real question that they don't know the answer to and they're asking it out of honesty.

I've had somebody basically pose this exact question to me in a different form. I have a family member that I shared the gospel with over the course of several years, a very close person in my family, and at one point I just asked her, literally, I think I might have said something like, just come back, just come back, you know the truth that we were raised in, we were raised in the same household, you know that you can come home.

And her genuine heartfelt answer was simply this, Don, there is a point in your life when you've wandered so far, wandered so far, that when you look back you can't even figure out the first step to untangle the mess.

She said, I don't even know what the first step looks like in going home. I don't know what that is. That's a devastating place for a heart to be, isn't it? It's a tough place. And there are people that you work with who feel that way.

There are neighbors that you have right across the fence from you that smile at you and wave and they feel that way in their hearts. I don't even know where to turn, I don't even know where to go. Well, at the time when I had this conversation, my world was fairly cliché.

Have you ever gone through that, did you go through that cliché phase? Everything in my mind, everything in my world was contemporary Christian music and coffee mug quotes. That's what I knew to offer, okay?

And so, I reminded her that God is only ever one step away, all you have to do is just turn and he's right there, he's always just one step away. And though I believe that that's technically true, I'm not convinced that that was much help to her.

I'm not sure that in the end that that provided anything for her to grab a hold of, any true and tangible hope. I mean, I think that it's a generic kind of comfort, but she was looking for, what do I do?

What do I do? What do I actually do next? These people are saying, what do we do to come back to you? What God says in verse 8 is not as quick as we might be to let people off the hook. A lot of times we're really quick to solve their problems with generalities and coffee mug quotes.

For you or me, when someone asks what must I do to get back with God, or what must I do to be in with God, we're like, pray and receive Christ, right? How many of you, that would be like a pretty quick answer for you?

I mean, just being honest. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, that's my gut level go-to. Like, I mean, what do you need to do to get back to God? Pray and ask Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior.

And that's not a terrible answer, but Jesus dealt with people on a much more personal level, and so does Malachi here. Jesus, by the way, told the woman at the well, she's actually asking him about him being the Messiah, and he, rather than drive for the scalp, rather than drive for the notch on his belt of one more follower, he says, I tell you what, before you follow me, I want you to do this.

I want you to go home and get your husband and bring him back here. Then we find out that Jesus actually knew that the man she was living with wasn't her husband, and she had had five other men before that.

She was a serial monogamist, if you will, but she was not married, and she was living with this guy, and he says, go take care of that. Bring him here. In essence, Jesus is literally calling out her sin, and is identifying the point in her life where she's holding on to sin, and she's not letting it go.

He told the rich young ruler, a guy who literally comes to Jesus, are you ready for this? A guy comes to Jesus and says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What do I have to do? How many of you would love to have an unsaved friend or family member come to you and say, is that like a slow pitch right across the plate, ready to get cranked out?

Anybody? I mean, what must I do to be saved? And you're like, boom, got him. Like right here, right now, this is going to happen. This is awesome. Some of us have had the privilege of leading someone to faith in Christ, and that's a beautiful and an awesome thing.

And yet, what does Jesus say? Oh, go sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. Then come and follow me. Not a prescription for all of you to have to go and sell all of your stuff. Jesus sees this man's heart and sees the greed that that is a hindrance, that that is the sin that is between him and his heavenly father, and he says, deal with that.

That's going to give you a clean view to God. That's going to bring you right in if you're willing to release this sin, if you're willing to let it go. None of this was to imply, by the way, in the life of Jesus, salvation is based on works.

Salvation is indeed based on a repentant heart, a heart that wants to be done with sin. Nobody can come home without forsaking their sin. A heart unwilling to let go of sin is not a heart ready for salvation.

It's heavy, but it's true. And I say all of that to make sense of what God says next in our text. All of that is a setup for this answer, which really is a question with a question here in Malachi. They ask him to point the way home, and he responds with, wait a minute, will a man rob God?

Will you continue to rob God? They say, how can we return? And he says in verse 8, if you really want to return, then you're going to quit stealing from me. Well, they're incredulous. They're beside themselves.

They're like, what? Of course we wouldn't rob you, God. How would we even get your stuff? But they have been robbing from God in their tithes and offerings, in their tithes and their contributions. They've been taking from him.

And you can look and see the solution in verse 10 that helps you to make sense of what does it mean that they're robbing him by tithes and offerings. Are they literally taking out of the, you know, the plate is going by, or they're going out to the black box and taking money out of it?

I mean, how does that work, and what does it look like? Well, look at verse 10, and it shows the indictment. The solution is bring the full tithe into the storehouse, which when we read the solution, it brings it clear that it's obvious that they were robbing God by not giving generously to him.

They weren't bringing it all in. Tithing, by the way, is an old covenant concept that I really believe is a good life discipline for all of us to really take on and consider. It's not a law. Tithing is not a law in the New Testament.

It's not, thou shalt give 10%, and God's really angry at you if you don't currently give 10 to the church or to ministry or whatever. It's not like that, but it's a really great principle from the Old Testament that I think is healthy to carry forward.

I heard another speaker this week define tithing as the life discipline of living off of 90 of my income as a reminder that God has been generous to me. I had a chance to hear that from my pastor, who was my pastor when I was in college, Jeff Mannion, he was speaking at a conference that I attended, just a day conference, and I thought that was a really excellent way to put it, the life discipline of living off of 90 of my income as a reminder that God has been generous to me.

In the Old Covenant, this was a part of the law and part of what made the people of God distinct. It was one other way that they set themselves apart, that they were set aside by God as distinct and unique.

It also involved a social aspect of providing food for the priests who served the people. You see, the priests in the book of Joshua, when they were taking the land, were not allowed any land. They were not allowed to be landholders.

They didn't have a place to raise crops. They didn't have a place to raise animals. And so their complete livelihood was based on the generosity of God's people, much like pastors and ministry leaders today are dependent on the giving of people.

So in verse 10, the people are commanded to bring the whole tithe into the temple storehouse so there may be food there for the priests. But due to this disobedience, as God has cursed the whole nation, he goes on to say, because they have altogether been guilty of robbing him what is his due.

But the second half of the text begins to hint at the hard attitude that was really the deep down issue for the people here in this text. There is a fact that hasn't changed over 2 ,400 years. From the time that Malachi wrote this, he sat down with a pen in his hand and penned this, to now.

Now, this hasn't changed at all, and it's simply math. We could do a lot more with 10 more income. Could you do more with 10 Could you do more with 10 more income? Raise your hand if you think that that's a truth.

Okay, those of you that aren't raising your hand, I don't get it. Because you can, it's math. So you were just kind of being stubborn there, just admit it for just a second. 10 more income, you could do more with it.

If I live off of 90 and do X with 90%, I could buy more, do more, eat more, quote unquote, in the American lifestyle, live more, if I use 100 for myself, right? Isn't that just true? And the people of God doubted that God would sustain them if they honored him by keeping his commandment.

Like, I don't think you got this, God. I mean, if I do this, is this, how's this gonna work out for me? What's in it for me? And so he, God, suggests a test to the people at this point in history. A test that I don't believe is a blanket test.

It's not something that I'm not throwing it out on you and saying, if you give 10%, then God's gonna open up the storehouses. But they, he says, here, try this. Try this, Israel, try this. And he speaks through the prophet Malachi.

He says, you return to me and bring the full tithe into the storehouse. And then watch and see if the sky doesn't open up for rain for your crops. Until everyone, every one of you is satisfied. Further, he says, I'm gonna rebuke the blight and disease that's been decimating your crops.

You've been under drought and disease for a while now, Israel. Test me. See if this doesn't work. And in verse 12, all of this is gonna result in the glory of God among the nations that they would look in.

And that's one of the whole purposes in the Old Testament of the people of God, of the nation of Israel, was that they would live in a distinct way, in a unique way, honoring God and receiving blessing from Him that the nations would go, wow, this is amazing.

When a person lives the right life, there is blessing and there is abundance. And that was part of that old covenant plan of God. And they will see that honoring God is a beautiful and glorious thing through His people.

And everyone will live happily ever after and everything will be just peachy. No, that's not exactly the case. I wanna be careful about this. I think it's important right now to interject an observation before we move on to the final issue of the heart motivation, which is found in verses 13 through 15.

I think that this sounds a lot like God is dropping a promise on all of us that if we give, He will give. Does it sound something like that? If we give, He'll give. If we withhold from Him, He will withhold from us.

And that just doesn't sound a whole lot like New Testament grace to me. You see what I'm saying? But that's not at all what this is teaching. Context always matters in Scripture. It always is significant for us to understand what's going on, what's the history, what's the culture, and who is being spoken to.

He is not speaking to an individual here. You notice that? He's speaking to an entire nation. He's speaking to an entire group of people. This is not a promise to you as an individual in 2017 in Matawan, Michigan that you will be blessed if you give.

If you want to take this as a literal promise, if you want to look at this and go, man, I want to apply this directly to me where I live, then the application would be give 10 to the church, and the result would be like the text says.

He's going to send you rain and make sure that your garden produces enough to feed your family. That would be the literal understanding of this text. Do you see that? If you're going to take it literally, then that's where it goes.

It goes to your garden. It's funny that whenever I've heard a prosperity preacher looking things up this week and hearing how people have used this text, it ends up with cars, personal jets, bank accounts, new jobs, super sweet threads.

I hope you can see as clearly as I can that this is a significant abuse of this text. This is not what this text is teaching. The first call in our text is a call for the people to return to God in relationship to him.

That's the fundamental thing. He wants your heart. That return entails trusting God with their lives enough to give him 10 of their income. God is not calling for changes from his people without knowing what's going on inside of them.

Just like Jesus, when he's looking at the woman at the well, he knows what's going on inside of her. He knows what's going on inside of you. My prayer every morning is that the Holy Spirit would meet you where you're at.

I can't preach in a way, I can't meet everybody's need when I'm standing up here. It's a little bit easier when it's one-on-one and we can have a little bit of back and forth. But when I'm standing up here, I'm speaking generally to all of you, hoping that God's word in his spirit makes it very specific to you and convicts you where you are at.

But the first call is that God is interested in your heart. He wants to have a relationship with you. He knows what's going on inside of you. He sees down to the level of your motivations. Why did these people in Malachi stop giving to the Lord?

They told him why. And they told him why in very harsh and direct words. They were quite harsh with their God and they have said that it is empty to serve him. It's vain. It's empty. There's no real results when we serve you, God.

And there is no profit in keeping your commands. They can either sacrifice and walk around with long faces. This is their dichotomy. This is the way that they see the world. We can either walk around with long faces as if we're mourning and sad or we can live it up with our wealth.

Which are you going to choose? That's kind of the way that they saw it. They saw it in extremes. How many of you know that giving to God is often a delight? When you're on that side and you actually get there and you're giving, it can be a joy.

Anybody experience the joy of giving and being able to bless others and be a benefit? But often when you're riding the fence on this issue, one looks really miserable and one looks really fun. Do you know what I'm talking about?

And what does our culture paint a picture of? Well, it's consume, consume, consume. Buy, buy, buy. What's going to make the average... If you were just to drop somebody who's never seen our culture into the midst of our culture, doesn't know anything about commercialism, what would they think we believe is the highest value?

Buying stuff, right? The more we consume, the better off we'll be. That's the mindset. And so there's this dichotomy and it's a false dichotomy that on the one side is mourning and sadness and all funerals and giving and on the other hand is keeping your wealth for yourself, partying, living it up and everything's going to be great.

Anybody have that friend in college who partied a lot and was miserable? You know the one I'm talking about? Some of you were that friend. I don't know. You've lived enough to kind of go, this isn't as fun as it was supposed to be and the commercials weren't quite right.

I mean, if I get that certain deodorant, the girls still don't, they're not all over me. That kind of thing. You know what I'm talking about. So it's like the commercials are false. I drive this car, but the speed limit's still the same.

In the commercials, they're driving at 90, 100 miles per hour down these curves and stuff. Uh-uh. That's not the way that it works. So you got those flashing lights behind you and the car suddenly and the pound and all kinds of bad things.

So it doesn't work. But it is funny how we draw these false dichotomies and the people were doing that. In Malachi's day, they were like, oh, this is really sad and this is really bad and it's going to be tough to give.

We see Malachi in our text return to a previous theme. It's kind of become a central theme in the book. The people believe that evildoers will prosper. They know people who have lived for themselves and are doing just fine on the outside.

They've observed real life. And what they say at the end of verse 15 is true in a temporary sense. Look at the text with me for just a second. And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper, but they put God to the test and they get away with it.

They escape. And there seems to be some truth to that. There seems to be some truth to that in your personal experience. You know somebody who just doesn't do well and doesn't do right and doesn't get judged and seems to be doing just fine.