Hallowed be your Name

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We’re in a new series on Malachi and today we’re looking at chapter 1 v6 – chapter 2 v9 under the heading ‘Hallowed be your Name’. Eight times in this section of Malachi there’s concern for the honour of God’s name – meaning his character and reputation. For the way the people and especially the priests were half-heartedly serving the Lord was an utter disgrace to his Name.

And how we need to be praying for God’s name to be hallowed or honoured in this country as well as in China, India and North Africa. But we also need to examine ourselves as Malachi helps us to do. Being half hearted or lukewarm is warned against most severely in Scripture. Our local shopkeeper who’s a keen Muslim said to me last week – “Are you doing your job?” I was rather non plussed at first. He repeated his question, “Are you doing your job?” He was referring to the riots and the state of the nation. He continued, “Are you making a difference and telling these young people about God?” And here in Malachi 1 & 2 it’s the religious leaders who come under severe criticism. V6: “It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name.” But the shopkeeper also asked,” What’s your church doing?” We need to pray in repentance and faith, with audacious faith in a great God and act in ways which bring honour and glory to God’s name and so that others may praise and honour his Name too.

So great challenges and opportunities lie ahead but we have a great God and it really is good to be back from a very good sabbatical. A sabbatical which, at times, has also been very challenging and not just because of the heat of the sun in India and the Sahara Desert. God has been challenging me from his word, indeed from Malachi: do you really love me Jonathan above all else – above your photography, above your support of Leeds United etc? Does it show in the quality of your worship and service to me? In response to my love for you do you really care about the honour of my Name?

And this passage from Malachi asks the same question of us all. Do you, do we really love God above all else? Does it show in the quality of your/of our worship and service to him? In response to his love for us do we honour or dishonour God’s Name? We pray every Sunday – Our Father hallowed be your Name but do we really mean it? Will that prayer be reflected in our lives tomorrow? At the recent funeral of John Stott it was mentioned that one of his favourite Bible verses was this from John’s Gospel. Jesus said (John 14:21):

If you love me you will obey my commands.

You see Malachi’s contemporaries may have been relatively orthodox in their beliefs but theirs had become a dead orthodoxy. They were all too ready to make ethical compromises and to dilute the demands of true worship. Malachi’s prophecy comes as a loud wake up call to them but also to us today. On my recent travels I’ve witnessed some of that dead orthodoxy – leaders and people just going through the motions. But what about us? Are we in our daily lives compromising and diluting God’s Word?

As we saw last week from the first 5 verses of chapter 1 God’s love for his people is real. Israel was questioning it just as perhaps we do sometimes. But God’s love calls for obedience and sincere sacrificial worship in response. Yet what were his people doing? They were dishonouring God by their feckless offerings and the hypocrisy of their worship.

You see if you’re a Christian believer why did God choose you? Not because you deserved it but because he loved you, because He is love.

And what did he choose you for? He chose us to be his people, a royal priesthood, says 1 Peter 2, “that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” In response to his love and mercy we are to bring honour and glory to his Name.


1. DISHONOURING WORSHIP v6-14

And in verse 6 onwards Malachi turns the tables on Israel’s complaint. It’s not God’s love for Israel which is to be questioned but Israel’s love for God. Now all the people were guilty of dishonouring God as we see from v14. Their offerings were being given grudgingly and so were cheating God. Have a look at v14:

“Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the LORD Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.” “When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the LORD.

But Malachi focuses his attack on the priests. Why? Because it was their responsibility to guard the sanctuary from defilement and to inspect all sacrifices to prevent the offering of blind, lame or sickly animals. And they were just not doing so. Of all the people who should honour the name of the Lord God, surely the priests would be first among them. But instead they showed contempt for his name. You see God’s law was very clear in its requirements. To be an acceptable sacrifice, an animal had to be perfect. After all, to offer a diseased animal is no sacrifice at all. And because the law of Israel was the law of God himself, rejecting that law meant rejecting God. And not only were they doing that themselves they were also leading God’s people further astray. They didn’t even want to make the sacrifices, but described serving and worshipping God as a burden. Their heart just wasn’t in it. V12&13:

12“But you profane my name by saying of the Lord’s table, ‘It is defiled,’ and of its food, ‘It is contemptible.’ 13And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the LORD Almighty.

So Malachi uses shock therapy to bring the priests to their senses. He contrasts the honour they readily give to people they respect with the heinous dishonour they’ve shown God.

And the priests are challenged to test the quality of the sacrifices by offering them to the Persian Governor instead. V8:

When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.

Even a merely human governor, master or father was receiving greater honour than was being offered by Israel to God, who was their supreme father, master and great King. V6:

“A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honour due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty. “It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name.”

Do we do the same and forget to God first?

So in short the priests were permitting the people to bring God less than their best. They forgot that to obey is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22).
But the priests were non plussed by this judgment. V6-8:

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’7“You place defiled food on my altar.“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’“By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible. 8When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong?

They’d deluded themselves into thinking that when it came to worship or offerings, something was better than nothing, lukewarm was better than cold. Whereas in fact, the Lord would prefer that such slovenly, irreverent, hypocritical worship would cease altogether. V10:

10“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the LORD Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.”

So what of our offerings and worship? Yes Jesus is our High Priest, who offered the one sacrifice for all time (Hebrews 7-10) and if we’re genuinely trusting in him alone then we are his and one of God’s chosen people, a royal priesthood who have been called out of darkness to bring honour to God’s name. Genuine faith leads to genuine worship and a sacrificial way of life. Romans 12:1:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Our offerings to God, such as our financial offerings, are an indication of what’s really in our hearts. And your credit card statements may well reveal much about your hearts. Do you, do I really love God above all else? Do we really understand what sacrificial giving is? I’ve been asking that question after meeting the mission team in West Africa and especially the wife whose husband was shot dead there for spreading the faith. You see if our concept of God is so low that we think he’s pleased with cheap half hearted worship, then we don’t really know the God of the Bible.

In Revelation 3:16 Jesus says to the church at Laodicea:

…because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

If that’s you, if that’s us then let’s respond in the way Jesus wants us to. He said to the Laodiceans:

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Who needs to respond to the Lord Jesus in that way this morning to the glory of his Name?

And Malachi prophecies in v11 that the nations will offer pleasing sacrifices to God. Gentiles with no relationship to God whatsoever will end up pleasing him, worshipping and magnifying his great name while his own people do not. The time when the message of salvation would be taken to all nations and when the Gentiles would flow into God’s Kingdom (Isaiah 2:2) through faith in Christ – a time that includes now as I’ve witnessed around the world – people in Islamic Republics, in India, in China, in Africa. Look at v11:

11My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the LORD Almighty.

God’s call to Abraham involved the Jews becoming a blessing to the whole earth (Genesis 12:1-3), just as his call to the church involves taking the Gospel to all nations. Are you bringing honour to God’s name by obeying that call?


2. DISHONOURING LEADERS

At one church I visited overseas someone said to me – oh so you’re from a parish church – that must be terrible for you! Why did he say that? Because of the reputation of many Anglican leaders in the West who do not teach the Word of God faithfully, if at all, who tragically lead people astray and who dishonour God’s Name. In 2 Peter 2 we read that such leaders, some of whom, even deny the Sovereign Lord, will bring destruction on themselves.
And as we’ve already seen Malachi was very concerned about the leadership of his day. God had established a contract with Levi and his descendants to bring honour to his name. Look at v5-7:

5“My covenant was with Levi, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin. 7“For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty.

However the state of the priesthood which Malachi spoke against bore little relation to the one God had envisaged. Levites were to administer the truth of God to his people, “as messengers of the Lord Almighty” (v7). But these priests were half hearted, lukewarm, worship was a burden to them and they did not obey the law. Instead of speaking the truth as a messenger of the Lord they caused people to stumble by their teaching and so dishonoured his name. They were wolves in sheep’s clothing. Therefore there were consequences. Look at v1-4 and 8-9. Malachi brings God’s strong admonition to them:

1“And now this admonition is for you, O priests. 2If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honour my name,” says the LORD Almighty, “I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honour me.3“Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will spread on your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. 4And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the LORD Almighty. 8But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the LORD Almighty. 9“So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

The punishment was to fit their crime. Because they’ve shown contempt for and failed to honour the Lord’s name (v2), they will be despised and humiliated before all the people (v9). Because they’d defiled God (1:7), he will figuratively defile them and disqualify them for service at the altar by spreading offal on their faces. That’s the offal taken from their rejected sacrifices. Since that offal was to be removed from the sanctuary and burned, as instructed in Leviticus 4, so now they too would be expelled (v3). Because they’d presumed to bless God’s people as if their sacrifices had been accepted and atonement made, God would now curse their blessings (v2). As Matthew Henry puts it in his well known and still excellent commentary:

Nothing profanes the name of God more than the misconduct of those whose business it is to do honour to it.

Now you might be thinking yes I agree but how do Malachi’s words to the priests apply to me today? Yes I’m to pray for leaders as Paul tells me in 1 Timothy 2 and I’ve been warned to watch out for wolves in sheep’s clothing and Jesus tells us to fight the wolf but I’m not a liberal Anglican bishop or vicar.

Well yes we are to pray for our leaders. Paul puts that high on the list of priorities for a church service in 1 Timothy 2. He writes:

I urge then, first of all, that prayers be made for everyone – for kings and all in authority.

But this passage applies in two further ways. First many of us have leadership roles in the church. If that’s you – are you a godly leader? Look again atv5-7. Are you someone who reveres the Lord, who stands in awe of him? Are you trusting in and depending on him, walking daily with him? Do your speech and your Bible teaching honour him? Are you honouring the Lord by your actions and example? And are you helping others to turn away from sin and to Christ by communicating the gospel? And secondly in the New Testament all Christians are priests. We have one High Priest, Jesus Christ, who offered the one sacrifice for all time, but all who have put their faith in Christ are priests in the sense that we’re all to be ministers of God’s Word and to bear witness to the holy name of God. Listen again to the amazing truth of 1 Peter 2:9:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

And also to Revelation 1:5-6:

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

The priests of Levi probably imagined that they were indispensable. But no and eventually through the glorious gospel God would equip people such as us, the nations of chapter 1 v11, to be his messengers. All who walk in the righteousness that comes from Christ would declare the praises of God. They are the ones who honour the name of the Lord. Are you, am I, are we living up to our calling for the glory of his Name? Are we concerned above all for his Name or for our own?

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