What God Expects From Leadership - [Malachi 2:1ff]

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Well, as a pastor, I'm very thankful that many of you serve the Lord Jesus Christ here in this church, ministering behind the scenes, maybe up front.
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I thank you for that. My question this morning is this. How is your service, though, on the inside?
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I know many of you are on time in your ministry and thorough in your ministry.
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You can be trusted in your ministry. You can be counted on in your ministry. But how about that internal motivation?
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Are you motivated from the heart to serve the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it something that comes from within where you say, you know,
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I really want to serve the Lord and others? Maybe I could put it this way. It's one thing if a husband provides, pays the bills, provides security, takes care of his family, but his heart isn't in it.
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Our wife, she does many things, and she is blameless from the outside, but her heart's not in it.
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How would we go about saying, Lord, I know based on who you are and what you've done, I want to serve you with my heart.
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I want to be more motivated. How do we do that? Let's take our Bibles and open to Malachi this morning as we continue verse by verse through the book of Malachi.
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It's the last book in the Old Testament. If you can find Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, just go to the left.
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The book of Malachi. And Malachi is going to help us as we think through the issue of how to be motivated for ministry.
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We all need to reconsider, is this just rote? Is this just professional?
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Is this just our job? Is this kind of an attidue attitude? That'll do rather, attitude.
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Or can we serve from the heart? And how could we go about changing our attitude if we struggle in this area?
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Now, it's been several weeks since I've been in Malachi, and I have to tell you, I'm thankful for that because I needed a breather.
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Maybe you needed a breather as well. If you notice in chapter 1, verse 1 of Malachi, the oracle.
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The word means burden. This is a hard book. This is a tough book. This is one of those books that is really forceful, and you feel the pressure.
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It's like you get done hearing a sermon on Malachi, and you just want to take a deep breath because it is a burden.
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God gave Malachi this burden because people were going through listlessness in their worship.
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They were just doing the bare minimum. They were sacrificing, but they were sacrificing animals that had eczema.
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Animals that were blind or lame. And so Malachi is going to help us as we see what does the
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Lord do to shock people out of their doldrums and to motivate them to serve.
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So here's what we'll do. Let me read chapter 1 since our sermon today comes from chapter 2.
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It'll be a good review because it's been probably five or six weeks since we've been in the book of Malachi.
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It's our desire here to just preach all of the Bible. Malachi chapter 1, verse 1.
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The oracle or burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I've loved you, says the
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Lord, but you say, how have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob's brother, declares the
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Lord? Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated. I've laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.
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If Edom says, we are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins. The Lord of hosts says, they may build, but I will tear down and they will be called the wicked country and the people with whom the
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Lord is angry forever. Your own eye shall see this and you shall say, great is
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Yahweh beyond the border of Israel. A son honors his father and a servant, his master.
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If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I'm a master, where is my fear?
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Says the Lord of hosts to you, O priest who despise my name. But you say, how have we despised your name?
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By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, how have we polluted you?
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How have we polluted you? By saying that the Lord's table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil?
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And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor.
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Will he accept you or show you favor? Says the Lord of hosts. Verse nine, and now entreat the favor of God that he may be gracious to us.
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With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you? Says the Lord of hosts. Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the doors 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 hand.
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For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations. And in every place incense will be offered to my name and a pure offering.
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For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. But you profane it when you say that the
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Lord's table is polluted. And its fruit, that is, its food may be despised. But you say, what a weariness this is.
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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. Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock and vows it and yet sacrifices to the
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Lord what is blemished. For I am a great king, says the
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Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.
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Bow with me, if you would, please. Father, I thank you for your word. And we would acknowledge this morning that you are very, very generous and gracious for giving us not just a revelation of your wisdom and power in nature, but also specific things about you, who you are, what pleases you, who is your
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Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, what has he particularly done for our sins. And Father, we would ask this morning that you would motivate us through this
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Old Testament book. We do not want to be like these priests. We do not want to be like these people who are told to sacrifice and sacrifice, but it was not the best.
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Father, you gave your best, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he sacrificed himself.
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And we would ask that you would help us to respond with repentance, with repentance, and with a renewed enthusiasm as you take your word and use it in our lives so that we might sing with more zeal, that we might give more sacrificially, that we might preach with more excellence.
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We might love our spouses in a more godly way from the heart. We want to worship you from the heart.
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We just can't try harder, we just can't do more. We need you to do that through your word based on who we are in Christ, our union with our
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Lord. So Father, use this oracle, use this burden today, that we might give honor and glory to your name.
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In Jesus' name, amen. If you had to find someone who gave
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God a lot of fear, gave God a lot of honor, someone who wanted to protect the nature and character of God, I wonder to whom you'd go.
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Movie stars, do they show forth a fear for God and a fear of God?
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Maybe politicians? Basketball players? I mean, if there's any place that you'd want to see someone that honors
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God's name, that fears God, that submits to Him, don't you think you'd want to find it in a local church?
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Lay people? Leaders? Pastors? Missionaries?
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In the book of Malachi, Malachi chapter 2, the writer's going to go after the priests.
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He's going to go after the leaders. Why is that? I could ask the question this way.
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Why are leaders required to go above and beyond that of a congregation?
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Why are leaders to be careful not to let many of you be teachers because you'll have the stricter judgment?
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Leaders, elders must be above reproach, 1 Timothy chapter 3. Why is that? Why is there a set of standards for the leaders and a different set of standards for the followers?
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Well, there's many reasons, but one is because like priests, like people.
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Like leaders, like laity. And so how can a congregation rise above its leadership?
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It's very difficult. So God is pressing in this Old Testament passage that leaders should, in chapter 2, fear the
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Lord and teach the Bible. And we'll see that's going to be very important for us as well as we brace ourselves for this oracle in Malachi chapter 2.
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I don't think I've ever told a congregation this before. I've said it to the first service and I'll say it to you.
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I don't know how technical this is, but when I read this, I have one word of advice for you. Duck.
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Because it is difficult language. It is hard language. It is language that, you know what, for people like us who want to be sophisticated and intellectual and New Englanders, who talks like this?
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Who says things like this in Malachi chapter 2? Well, let's see how
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Malachi addresses the priests because it's so important, like minister, like people. There needs to be a wholehearted love for the honor of God in leadership so that the people can be motivated as well, so they see it in their leaders.
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And it says in chapter 2 of Malachi verse 1, as these leaders are addressed, you'll see them by the name priest because we just think
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Old Testament, Old Covenant. And now, O priests, this command is for you.
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What I love about the Bible, it's so trans -chronological. It's so relevant that this isn't good just for priests in the
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Old Testament. This is good for leaders today. And you say, well, why must a leader be a good manager of his household so you will learn and see and aspire to and so that you might be a good leader as well?
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You can't just say, well, I'm not a leader, so this doesn't apply to me. Leaders apply to everyone and their qualifications apply to everyone.
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And hear these priests, this command is for you. No suggestion, no time of sharing, no time of let's all get together and say, what do you think this command means to you?
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No, this command, O priest, is for you. That's the primary audience, but it spills over into everything else.
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You'll see a theme in chapter 2, says the Lord Almighty. Says the Lord Almighty.
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This is God talking and the punishment will fit the crime. God forbid that we would ever act like these priests who basically say, this is not a ministry.
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This isn't service to the Lord. This is a job and I'm just going through the motions. Least that I could do.
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It's just a routine. Notice how God through Malachi goes for the heart.
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Son, give me your heart. You could hear a dad say that to his son. If you will not listen, chapter 2, verse 2.
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Remember what the priests have been doing. They've been accepting these sacrifices that were anything but sacrificial. The people have been coming to the priest.
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We know we're sinful. Here's a sacrifice. The wages of sin is death. We're supposed to die, but God in His goodness and His gracious, pointing ultimately to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, accept this sacrifice instead of me.
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I deserve to have my throat slit, but slit the throat of that animal instead because you've graciously,
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God, put substitution there. It's the lamb for me. It's the goat for me. And ultimately the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world for me.
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And we want to make sure that sacrifice is sacrificial, and so some goat that has three legs or some lamb that has one eye or some bull that has a defect isn't sacrificial and it doesn't point to the pure, spotless, holy, ultimate sacrifice, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. So stop taking bad sacrifices.
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And it says in verse 2, if you will not listen, I just notice even the kindness of God here and all this future promise of judgment, if they don't repent.
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There's always room for repentance. The grace and gift of repentance. It's not too late.
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If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the
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Lord of hosts, then I will send, definite article, the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.
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Indeed, I've already cursed them because you do not lay it, here it is again, do you notice, to heart.
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I want your heart. Now friends, don't fall into our kind of western thinking.
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Here's our western thinking. Head knowledge, heart knowledge. I've got intellectual knowledge and I've got feeling.
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That's a wrong use of the word heart for both Hebrew and Greek. Head and heart.
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That's not the way to think about it. The word heart in Hebrew means something like this.
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I notice the value of something. I understand how wonderful it is, how precious it is, how valuable it is.
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And like some kind of magnet, I am drawn to that preciousness.
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And everything about me changes course because it's just like a gravitational pull.
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Heart has knowledge. Heart has mind. It's a mission control center. It's just not my feelings.
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He's not saying, you know, you just have to have some feelings. No, feelings are included. Feelings aren't absent, but you've got to get the mind there.
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I so value you God. I so think you're precious and weighty. Do you notice what the text says?
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Honor. You see that? Give honor to my name. What's that word honor? It means heavy.
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It means denseness. It means weight. It means gravitas.
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It's something that's heavy, right? Back in the 60s, some of you I know made it through the 60s by the skin of your teeth.
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And you might say things in the 60s were either A, groovy, or we named our fish groovy once when we were kids.
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Some kind of lamprey eel or something. I don't know what it was called. Groovy. It was in the 60s. And the other thing you'd say about something, if you were impressed by it, you'd say, and when something has so much weight, a pewter -like denseness to his attributes, and then you just go, you know what, forget the gravitational pull.
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Forget the magnet. Instead of having the weight of ministry and the weight of teaching children in the nursery, discussing the fame of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, instead of having my heart go to it, I just kind of do the opposite. That's what the priests were doing.
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It's just a job. It doesn't matter. They're essentially saying there's no honor for the
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Lord Jesus Christ. There's a lightness. There's like a feather. Matter of fact, I don't believe that God still speaks outside His words today, except this first sermon that I preached when
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I was talking about heavy and feather and all that. Some kind of weird feather came and started floating right here. I almost inhaled it.
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I didn't know what to say to people, but it was a sign, I'm certain. Oh, that's just a light thing.
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That's an insignificant thing. That's a trivial thing. And the priests were doing that very thing with the sacrifice of God.
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So let's just stop here for a second. We ask ourselves a question for self -examination and for preaching. So the
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Lord has given you a ministry. Maybe that's nursery. Maybe that's sound room. Maybe that's with music.
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Maybe that's with being an usher. Maybe that's snow plowing. Maybe that's you just fill in the blank.
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If not, careful. If not keeping our focus on the heaviness and the honor and the weight and who
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God is, it is easy for us, sinful people, justified, yes, redeemed, yes, but still in the flesh, dealing with the flesh principle in us, to just kind of go back to, well,
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I could do that in my sleep. I'll just do the bare minimum for the VBS and bare minimum for the
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Sunday school. These priests were not giving it their heart to honor the
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Lord. If you will not take it to heart to honor my name. What's name in the
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Bible? It's all the attributes of God. It's a summary of who God is. I read
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Exodus 34, thinking about the name of God. God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but by no means will clear the guilty.
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Such a name, such a royal name, such a great king, chapter 1 says, I'm the great king. It should make us just get drawn into,
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I want to just serve Him. No wonder you'll have old missionaries say it's better to burn out than to rust out.
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That's the kind of idea for His name. And what's the threat?
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I'm going to send a curse on you, and I'm going to curse your seed or your blessings. This is serious.
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There's a penalty, because you're not taking it to heart. They were there doing it. They were accepting sacrifices.
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But their heart wasn't in it, and they began to cut corners. Place this upon your heart.
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Verse 3, Behold, first of five times in Malachi, in the
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Hebrew language, you'll see behold. Pay attention. Watch out.
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Duck. I will rebuke your offspring. See, the language again is future tense.
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It's not too late to repent. It's not too late to say, okay, you're right, Lord. It's not too late to do the right thing.
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But if you won't, I'm going to rebuke your offering. I'm going to rebuke your seed.
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Literally, I'm rebuking to you the seed. See, as the descendants of Aaron, as the descendants of Phinehas had an everlasting, perpetual priesthood who would follow them as one son after another after another would follow, you're going to be cut off.
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Your offspring is going to be terminated. Verse 3 goes on to say,
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And spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it.
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Now, I think it's wrong to use shock value from the pulpit in an inappropriate way.
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But this is shock value in the Bible in a very appropriate way. Two times the word dung is used.
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Now, I didn't grow up on a farm, but I worked every summer on a farm when
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I was younger. And I had several jobs. My first job, I cut the weeds out of the bean field.
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Second job, you detassel the corn. Never have your hands like this for like hour after hour after hour detasseling corn.
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And you know, every year I would get a better job, and I'd graduate up, and I graduated to my third job. It wasn't cutting the weeds out of the bean field, and it wasn't detasseling corn.
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It was shoveling cow manure. See, you know, it's a graduation.
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And for eight hours, I would shovel cow manure. And underneath these feed troughs, they had certain things, and so they told us, for every one of these that you shovel out and clean out, you get one dollar.
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I mean, I could just count how many dollars I was going to get by the end of that day. And it wasn't too fun.
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Kind of a smelly job. When a priest would sacrifice the animal, you'd want to get rid of the entrails.
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You'd want to get rid of the intestines. And you'd want to get rid of everything in those intestines.
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And you'd get them away. Back in the day, around here, before indoor plumbing,
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I don't think the children who were responsible for the privy pot just decided to go to the front door and dump it on the steps.
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You'd go take that out to the woods. You'd get that far away. Why? Because it's awful. It's repugnant.
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It's gross. How much more you translate into the tabernacle and then into the temple, and you think, okay, these priests, their gross sins only deserved one thing, and that was something more grosser.
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It's graphic, I know. It's blunt, I know. But it's meant to motivate.
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It's meant to shock them out of their senses. Now, that word dung can be translated dung.
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It could be fecal matter. It could be refuse. Or maybe my new word that I appreciate the most for a synonym for this is awful,
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O -F -F -A -L, because awful is awful.
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It's awful. It's gross. And you notice the text?
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I'm going to spread dung on your faces, dung on your offerings, and you're going to be taken away with it. And off you go.
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I mean, if that doesn't get their attention, I don't know what would. The precious value of a sacrificial system in the
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Old Testament where a sacrifice dies instead of the people has been so abused by the leaders, so abused by the priests, profaning it, wearisome to them, that the writer says, speaking for God, maybe if I rub your nose in it, you'll wake up.
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Now, I don't know about you. I'm just trying to be as careful as I can. But it's supposed to shock.
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If you walk outside and you slip and you realize it's not ice or mud, it's something else, and you've got hiking boots on, and you realize what that's going to take as you clean that off, that's on your shoe.
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This is on their faces. They don't honor God. They don't fear
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Him. They don't treat Him as heavy. They're just going through the motions. I mean,
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I don't know about you, but it's that kind of stuff that you can see why the priest would want to get it away, get it far away.
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It's awful. It's disgusting. We want to just disregard that.
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We don't even want to think about it. We don't even want to see it. Just get rid of that. You do it at your home and you do it there in the
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Old Testament sacrificial system. Listen to these verses from the
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Old Testament. Exodus 29, But the flesh of the bull and its skin and its dung you shall burn with fire outside the camp.
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Leviticus 4, But the skin of the bull and its flesh with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung, and all the rest of the bull he shall carry outside the camp.
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Leviticus 8, But the bull and its skin and its flesh and its dung he burned up with fire outside the camp.
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Leviticus 16, The bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place shall be carried outside the camp.
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You have to sacrifice for sins and then get rid of that outside the camp.
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It's dishonorable. It's profane. It's to be disregarded. It's despicable.
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It's awful. We don't have a dung heap in the sanctuary.
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I'd like you to take your Bibles please to Hebrews chapter 1. And you're going to have to bear with me as we work up to a point, to a high point, as I help you think through the sacrifice of our
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Lord and who He is. Hang in there with me. It's going to be worth it. All right.
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Let's set the scene for Hebrews. And after reading some of these verses in Hebrews today,
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I think this fall we'll have to start through the book of Hebrews. What's going on with the book of Hebrews?
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We've got a group of Christians and they're on the run. They're persecuted.
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They're on the run. And you know what they don't have? They don't have the marble of the temple,
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Solomon's temple redone by Herod. They don't see the gold. They don't hear the trumpeters. They don't smell the incense.
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All their tactile senses are gone. Why? Because they're in a catacomb. They're in a basement.
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They're getting persecuted and they're on the run. Oh, you could just imagine the days of the temple.
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The days of worship on the temple mount.
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So the writer of Hebrews is basically going to say this. Friends, I know you are tempted to go back to this building.
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I know you're tempted to go back to the glitz and the glamour and the pomp and the circumstance, one of the wonders of the world.
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But even though you're in the basement and even though they're persecuting you and even though some of you are dying and even though you can't have a job, do you know what?
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Jesus is enough. The Lord Jesus is enough. If you've got Jesus, you've got everything.
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And he writes the book of Hebrews, does this author, so people realize he's great, he's superior, and nothing
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I go back to is worth it. So let's just hit a few high points of the book of Hebrews so you can see just how great it is and how great specifically
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Jesus is so that we tie in Malachi and Hebrews together. You won't forget it.
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Hebrews 1, picking up in the middle of verse 2, His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also
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He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.
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And He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins,
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He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Having become as much superior to angels as the name
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He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. For to which of the angels did
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God ever say, You are my Son, today I have begotten you? Verse 8,
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But of the Son He does say, calling Him God. The Father calling the Son God. Your throne,
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O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
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Jew, you love angels. You know how great angels are. And I want you to know that Jesus is better than angels.
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And the writer of Hebrews goes on in chapter 2, verse 14, extolling who Jesus is.
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Jesus is superior. Jesus is great. Jesus is worth it. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood,
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Hebrews 2, verse 14, He himself emphatically likewise partook of the same thing, that through death
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He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
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For surely it's not angels that He helps, but He helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
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For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.
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You can imagine you're on the run, you're being persecuted, you're longing to go back to Judaism, and Jesus is great.
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Chapter 3, verse 3, For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.
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Jesus is so great, don't take your eyes off of Jesus because He's greater than angels, He's greater than Moses.
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Why? He's a great high priest. Verse 14 of chapter 4. This is just a book that just proclaims who
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Jesus is. If the heavens don't stop proclaiming that God is powerful,
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Hebrews doesn't stop proclaiming that Jesus is superior. Hebrews 4 .14
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Since then we 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 weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
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Chapter 8. Chapter 8, verse 1. He just will not stop. The writer of Hebrews will not stop this sacrifice of praise.
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Now the point in what we are saying is this. Don't you like it when the Bible does that? Now the point is what we are saying is this.
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We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister of the holy places in the true tent that the
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Lord set up, not man. So friends, when you get to chapter 11, just as a side note, this one is for free.
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I hope you don't run around telling everybody about how great Abraham is, how great Enoch is, how great Moses is, how great
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Gideon is, how great Barak is, how great, who else is in that list, Jephthah, how great
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Samuel is, how great David is, how great Sarah is. Jesus is the great one, and these people were all given eyes to see through faith the great one.
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That's chapter 11. It's not their great, they're looking at the great one. So how do we tie this into Malachi?
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Mike, what's the point? Go to chapter 13, please. In a book about the greatness of Jesus, He is greater than angels, greater than Moses, greater than Aaron, greater than any kind of priest, greater than the
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Old Testament system, He's greater than Paul, greater than anyone. Hear this great one, what happened to Him?
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And how does this relate to motivating me for gospel ministry? How does it relate to you and your ministry that God has given you?
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Hebrews 13, 11. Let's find out.
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For the body of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.
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Isn't that what we just got done talking about? They're burned outside the camp. You take the entrails, you take the head, you take the guts full of the refuse, and they are despicable, they are gross, they are not to be regarded, and they're to be outside the camp.
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Shameful. That stuff is shameful. Reject it.
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Have nothing to do with it. Our rejection of you is final. It's awful.
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They're burned outside the camp. Unclean. Verse 12.
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Don't you miss it. You won't want to miss it. So Jesus, So Jesus, tying into the very last verse.
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So Jesus also suffered outside the gate, outside the camp, in order to sanctify the people through His own blood.
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Do you see it? John 19, it says, Jesus went out to Golgotha, a place near the city.
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You don't execute criminals inside the city because they're awful, they're wicked, they're unclean, they're unholy.
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We don't sacrifice people in the temple because that's sacred. And here
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Jesus suffers outside the gate, outside the camp.
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Can you imagine your Lord Jesus Christ, my Lord, treated with no regard, treated as if He was a sinful person, treated as if He were no better than these things thrown out.
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They had condemned Him, the Sanhedrin did, for blaspheming the name. They condemned
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Him for being a Sabbath breaker. And now they want to say, we're not going to sacrifice
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Him here. He's got to be outside the camp because His rejection is final.
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His rejection is death as an outcast. He is to be treated as if unclean, even though Jesus has never sinned ever.
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He is the spotless, pure Lamb, the precious Lamb, as 1 Peter talks. And Jesus is treated as if,
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He is condemned as if, He suffers outside the gate. Do you notice it in verse 12?
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For what reason? His rejection is final. For what reason? He's treated as unholy.
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For what reason? To sanctify or to make holy the people through His own blood.
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Friends, we are the ones, because of our sin, deserve to be treated like that.
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We are the ones who deserve to be rejected, despised. He has shame, but we deserve the shame.
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So when you look at Hebrews chapter 12, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame.
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He is the one treated as if He's the cursed one. He is rejected. He is accursed.
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He is treated like unmentionable things. Galatians 3, 4,
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All who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written,
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Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.
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Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
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For it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Verse 13 of Hebrews 13.
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What would be our response? How do you motivate people for gospel ministry?
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You show them who Christ is. And you say, He's better than angels. He created the world.
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He made purification for your sins. He upholds the universe. The Father says of Him, You're God.
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He's better than Moses. He's better than Aaron. He's a high priest. He doesn't have to sacrifice day in and day out.
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He's fully human so He could be our representative. He's alive. He's been raised from the dead. And He suffered.
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And so, verse 13, Therefore, let us go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach
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He endured, bearing the disgrace He bore. Friends, as Christians, that verse is a wake -up call for every
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Christian in light of the political suicide that's happening in our world now who says, I'm going to skate through life easily and it's not going to cost me to follow
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Christ. We go where He goes. And He's treated with disgrace.
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Of course, we will as well. But here's the good news, friends. Verse 14, For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
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How do we respond? When you realize Jesus paid for your sins and redeemed you from the curse of the law by going outside the camp for you, treated like you should have been treated, like I should have been treated, verse 15, through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice.
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Oh, now we have to sacrifice. What's that sacrifice? Of praise to God. That is specifically the lips, the fruit of lips that acknowledge
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His name. How great is that? How do you get people to be motivated and to praise and to sacrifice?
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You show them who Christ is. Friends, over and over and over, I have to re -preach this message to myself, and that's this.
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The world says you deserve it all. You earned it all. You get the best. Best life now.
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Everything's at the top. Wonderful. Money. Fame. Everything's the best. Relationships.
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And you know what? This is a fallen world, and we are fallen people, and it doesn't deliver. And if this is the way you order your universe, you are going to be depressed, down, moody, crabby, sullen, sour, dour, and any other word
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I can come up with that I can't think of right now. It's just like, hey, I got ripped off in life.
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I don't get this. But when you realize to make it tie in, actually the entrails of the animal with the things in the entrails that need to get thrown out of the camp because it's unholy and unclean and all that,
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I'm actually worse than that because I've been created in God's image and likeness, and I know better, and I am to worship
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Him, and yet I've turned my back on Him, yet He did not let me go. His Son died in my place.
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I'm now a king. I'm the son of a king. I'm adopted in the family of God.
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And I realize I deserve to be outside the camp. If you're here today, this is what you deserve, like it or not.
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You deserve to be thrown outside the camp with the dung, with the entrails, and yet what do you get?
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And Paul, maybe it's not Paul, whoever the writer of Hebrews is, I don't think it's Paul, praising
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God, I get to go to heaven, Christian, every one of your sins forgiven. Every one of your sins paid for.
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Every one of your sins, as far as the east is from the west. There's going to be no one, including
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Satan, who can take your sins and rub your nose in them. And I deserve this.
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And I get this. And I've got a city, not Worcester. By the way, that in the
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Greek is not Worcester in Hebrews 13, the everlasting city, the eternal city. It's a city on seven hills, but that's another sermon.
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The eternal city. I get to be with God. You say, well, how am I motivated in gospel ministry?
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Well, if your eyes get off of Christ, and you're just like, well, you know, nobody notices me, nobody pays attention, the kids don't respond,
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I'm just back here again, it's the same thing this week, it's the same thing that week, and you begin to preach to yourself all these negative things, versus, okay, how can
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I put my heart into something? I deserve hell. You deserve to go to hell, and you get to go to heaven.
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You get heaven. And the writer says, I'm going to offer up my praise, the fruit of the lips that acknowledge his name.
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That's exactly what the Malachi priests weren't doing. The name has no honor. The name has no weight.
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And Hebrews says, the name has honor. The name has weight. And you can be in a catacomb, being persecuted, having your leader hung upside down on a cross, and you can still be praising
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God. Still be motivated for gospel ministry. There are people that want to get rid of Jesus' death on our behalf, because it's too bloody.
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It's too gross. It's too awful. And they want to replace the death of Jesus with some kind of nurturing.
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And you know, the best way to show love is maybe a baby at the breast of his or her mother. Nurturing and kind and caring.
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Now, of course, there's an aspect of God that's nurturing and kind and caring. But at the hub of the world, at the hub of Hebrews, at the hub of your praise life, it's this.
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I deserved it, and He took it in my place. And the penalty
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I deserve, because I've sinned against a holy God, Jesus intercepted, and He's my advocate.
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He's my lawyer. He's my friend. He's my substitute. And God affirms
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Him by raising Him from the dead. How do you motivate yourself for gospel ministry?
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The answer cannot be 57 new steps for me to be re -motivated.
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The answer has to be Jesus. He made you.
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He upholds the universe. He made purification for sins. He's seated at the right hand of God the
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Father. He's better than angels. He's better than Moses. He's better than Aaron. He's better than baseball.
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He's better than money. He's better than your family. He's better than you are. He's better than the old covenant.
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And He's worthy to be praised. The key for your heartfelt worship lies in your adoration of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father in heaven,
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I thank You for these words in Malachi. Difficult words. Hard to say.
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Priest, You treat me like dung and I'll treat You like dung. Father, Your Word is true and Your Word is profitable.
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You said through Paul to Timothy, all Scripture is God -breathed and it's all profitable.
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It's good for us. And we are thankful. Those of us in Christ Jesus this morning, that we never have to be shamed before You.
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No shame. You have forgiven us. And we are thankful that Jesus did endure the cross outside the camp despising the shame and then
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You seated Him at the right hand of Your throne. Father, I pray for Bethlehem Bible Church.
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I pray it starts with me and it trickles all the way down. Father, help us to do this for all the right reasons that Your name might be glorified.
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Here in Worcester, here in this building, here in a different building, we want to revere
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You and have awe for You and to have fear as these priests needed to.
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And as Charles Wesley would say, in light of our sins, in light of our shame, and can it be that we would have an interest to You at all, that He would die for us, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. We are very, very thankful. I pray that Bethlehem Bible Church would be known for praise.
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Father, may that praise, drowned out complaining, may that praise drowned out grumbling, may that praise drowned out the praise of men, our sports stars, our movie stars, our music stars, may that praise drowned out everything because the
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Lord Jesus Christ deserves it all. In His name we pray. Amen.