Getting Prepared (Advent 2) December 5, 2021

GETTING PREPARED

Text: Malachi 3:1 - 4

Malachi 3:1-4  See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.  (2)  But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap;  (3)  he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.  (4)  Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years (NRSV).

There are people like those in Malachi’s audience in every generation. They don’t make preparation a priority. These were covenant people who were side-stepping their covenant.

When you hear the word covenant, what do you think of? A covenant is a pledge between two parties. “… a contract is performance-based, and a covenant is acceptance-based.  …. a contract is transactional and a covenant is relational. … ” https://jrjarvis.com/whats-the-difference-between-a-covenant-and-a-contract/ God is good at keeping His end of what He promises and we are bad at keeping our end. Unlike a contract, a covenant does not depend on the faithlessness of the other party. In a contract, if one side violates the terms, the contract is broken. God always keeps His word.

Malachi’s audience would not be ready for God’s arrival in their circumstances because they were not prepared for the Lord’s coming. How did they slight the covenant that they made with God? They showed contempt for the priesthood by offering blemished (crippled or diseased) animals for sacrifices, they profaned the Lord’s table, they caused many to stumble, and they were divorcing their native wives and marrying women of pagan nations (Malachi 1 -2).

They needed to clean up because they were not fit to be in the Lord’s presence. Have you ever noticed how pets resist a bath and sinners resist cleansing? Malachi was sent as a messenger to prepare the way for the Lord’s coming.

In today’s text, we see a messenger , his message and the response.

MESSENGER

There are are two extremes. People panic when they hear news of a storm or they are complacent.

1) Panic button: Do we take messengers seriously? You can always tell when they have hit the panic button!

You can always tell when people have taken messengers of impending danger seriously in the grocery store. The threat of bad weather always drives people to the grocery store to get supplies. Staple items like bread, milk, water, cheese, batteries are some the first things people will but to get prepared. Who can forget the toilet paper shortage of the covid 19 shut down?

2) Complacent: Do people get complacent about impending disasters?

It has been said the “Complacency is a blight that saps energy, dulls attitudes, and causes a drain on the brain. The first symptom is satisfaction with things as they are. The second is rejection of things as they might be. “Good enough” becomes today’s watchword and tomorrow’s standard. Complacency makes people fear the unknown, mistrust the untried, and abhor the new”. (Galaxie Software. (2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press.) Complacency can be deadly and dangerous!

One of the worst things about a disaster is to not to be prepared for it. I once served a church that had a role in disaster relief in the event of a hurricane. The chair person of the committee on disaster relief one day got perturbed because of how poorly attended a meeting was. Only the people on the committee showed up. People did not take getting prepared all that seriously even after Hurricane Matthew (2016). I always worried about the event of a hurricane and the ill-prepared people of that community. Luckily, we never had to deploy our disaster relief task while I was their pastor.

Have we heard the message to prepare for the Lord’s arrival? God’s people were not in fellowship with God. Someone, (Elizabeth Achtemeier) explains their sin: “Their sin was a total indifference toward the will of the Lord, rising out of their loss of intimate fellowship with God in the covenant bond.” (Elizabeth Achtemeier. Interpretation: Nahum through Malachi. ATlanata: John Knox Press, 1986, p. 184). In avoiding their fellowship with God could they avoid their responsibility to be the people God called them to be? Were they (and are we) guilty of doing things that they should not have done? Were they (and are we) guilty of leaving things undone that they should have done?

MESSAGE

What was the message of the messenger? They were indifferent, lacked accountability and had misguided zeal.