Slowly Drifting Into Lukewarm Waters - A closing thought on The Twelve.

I used to get beat up a lot in elementary school. Like, a whole lot. I won two of the countless fights. First against one kid, then later against two. From then on, I lost every fight because they typically involved a sizable gang of soccer players against one bookworm. My idea of fights changed from an unpleasant but sometimes necessary confrontation to something I should avoid at all cost.

But it wasn't fights I hated. I hated having people gang up on me. With every essay I wrote throughout this series of The Twelve, I had a growing sense of dread that another crowd of aggressors would soon form to pummel me.

After finishing Malachi, I let out a deep breath and thought to myself, "I made it. On to the next topic." But then I felt the Holy Spirit confront me through scripture in a few passages. He had more hard lessons for me in Matthew 13 and Deuteronomy 8:11-19.

The parable of the sower comes from Matthew 13. Instead of reciting what we may assume as familiar and recognizable verses, I'll paraphrase in hopes we will begin to recognize the hard truth of this passage. A man went into his field to sow, or scatter seed. Some fell onto the hardened pathways and were eaten by birds. Some fell on rocky soil where the plants soon sprouted. But the shallow soil didn't allow for deep roots and the sun caused the plants to wither. Some seed fell among thorns and the plants could not compete with the weeds for nutrients. They also died. But some of the seed fell on good soil. These plants grew strong and their roots went deep. The seed and grain they produced in their growth multiplied many times over.

Jesus later explains this story to His disciples. The soil represents our hearts and how they respond to the Word of God, or the seed. The heart may be so hard that it doesn't at all recognize or accept the truth of God's word, so like birds, an enemy to the farmer, our Enemy steals the seed away.

The heart may have a surface conveniently covered in soil. It may look ready for life to grow in it, but the hardness of the path lies below the surface, preventing firmly established roots. When trouble or pain comes like the inevitable heat of the sun, the showy plants wither away and die. If the farmer didn't know what lay beneath the surface, it may have come as a surprise. Those plants appeared healthy and vibrant, but they had no substance in the soil of the heart.

The heart may have soil where the word could grow, but thorns and weeds also occupy that heart. Jesus explained how the thorns represented "the worries of the world and the deceitful glamor of wealth". They vie for attention in the heart, take its energy, and cause the word planted to "produce nothing". One might look at this patch of soil and think, "Well, there's a plant there. They've obviously accepted Jesus enough to invite Him into their heart. It's just a shame about all those thorns..." But in Matthew 13, it doesn't appear Jesus would agree. What's the difference between a plant growing among stones and thorns if neither produces a yield?

It's the heart removed of harness and worldly cares which grows strong and bears goodness.

Moses warned God's people of the hardness and thorns before they entered the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 8:11-19. "Be careful not to forget the Lord your God by not obeying His commands, rulings, and regulations that I am giving you today. Otherwise, after you have eaten and are satisfied, built fine houses and live in them, and increased your herds, flocks, silver, gold and everything else you own, you will become proud-hearted.

"Forgetting the Lord your God - who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves; who led you through the vast and fearsome desert, with its poisonous snakes, scorpions and waterless, thirsty ground; who brought water out of flint rock for you; who fed you in the desert with manna, unknown to your ancestors; all the while humbling you and testing you in order to do you good in the end - you will think to yourself, 'My own power and the strength of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.'

"No, you are to remember the Lord your God, because it is He who is giving you the power to get wealth, in order to confirm His covenant, which He swore to your ancestors, as is happening even today. If you forget the Lord your God, follow other gods and serve and worship them, I am warning you in advance today that you will certainly perish."

God brought the people of Israel through the Sinai Desert for them to learn this lesson: They were weak and helpless. He is their only source and hope for life. That last verse stung like a kidney punch when I thought of the message of The Twelve. If you follow other gods and despise God, who is your source of life, you will die.

So here I sit before you all with purpled eye-sockets, hugging my stomach after getting dog-piled by every minor prophet, Moses, and Jesus Himself. Revisiting the theme of each minor prophet, I experienced heavy, heavy conviction. It was so easy to write as if I were on the side of God and prophet, shaking my head in disbelief at the foolishness and evil pervading God's people. After a few days of prayer and reflection, I realized that I am as wicked and foolish an idolater as any of God's people in the days of the prophets.

When I applied for my job, I went to that particular business because I believed God wanted me there to speak into peoples' lives. He made it clear to me - this job wasn't about the paycheck. Over time, I let little cares, little weed-seeds, take root in my heart. I began to care about my pay. I began to care about career advancement. I was proud of my financial responsibility and strong work ethic. As Moses put it, I began to say to myself, "My own hard work and abilities have given me favor and success."

Ugh. What a load of crap. James 1:17 is clear that every good thing in my life comes from God. In 4:13-16, he confronts my proud attitude. "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a city, stay there a year trading and making profit'! You don't even know if you will be alive tomorrow! For all you are is a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wants it to happen, we will live' to do this or that. But as it is, in your arrogance you boast. All such boasting is evil."

Why is it evil? Because I have put my trust in myself, in the wealth I could produce, and was frustrated over the wealth I didn't produce because I thought I deserved more. God appears nowhere in that line of thinking. I didn't put my trust in Him. My faith rested on me, on money, on success and a good reputation. Hosea likened this to adultery. Joel warned of God's wrath toward the proud. Amos told many "believers" they deserved this wrath. Obadiah encouraged his listeners to trust God's reputation more than surrounding circumstances. Jonah showed the futility of thinking anyone had the right to call God unfair in His judgment. Micah shattered the idea of acceptable worldliness or "harmless sin". Nahum reminded us that God alone is perfectly able to judge between good and evil. Habakkuk abandoned his attitude of entitlement and humbly, even joyfully, accepted God's judgment. Zephaniah condemned the worship of anyone or anything less than and apart from God. Haggai showed the how focusing on our circumstantial problems took away from worshiping God. Zechariah gave a plea to follow God instead of our own wisdom. Malachi shook us awake with a sober reminder that God wants our whole heart's devotion and nothing less.

I once noted how the pre-exile prophets often spoke against idolatry, serving false gods that promised fertility, prosperity, and security. The post-exile prophets may not have had to compete with Ba'al or Molech in terms of statues or furnaces, but the sin of the people remained the same. They worried over provision and security, failing to trust in God to give them all they needed, and thus living without faith. The writer of Hebrews drew a hard line in saying anything apart from faith is sin.

In the past two months, I have heard a large number of people use variations of this phrase: "Yeah, it's good to have faith, but you have to think about..." That's not to say we should live without thinking or having a plan, but the people who said these things were worried about the practical needs of everyday life. God tells people to avoid laziness and work hard in Proverbs, but Jesus also told His listeners not to worry about what they will eat or wear. Work hard, but know that God provides. Any anxiety takes your trust from Him and puts it in some worthless idol like the economy or your own abilities. One man looked at my fiance and said, "God forbid you get pregnant..." because he thought it would destroy us financially. Yes, it's good to have a stable home in which to bring a child. My future wife and I want very much to prepare before we have a family. Scripture is clear, however, that children are a blessing from God. Why would I want to forbid any blessing and call it a curse just because it didn't appeal to an idol of finance? Where is my trust in God if I carry that attitude?

After hearing from some of these men and women, it horrified me to think that I might have initially agreed with them and bowed to the same idols. In his discussion on Matthew 13, Francis Chan warned, "Don't assume you are good soil". My heart may not have been a hardened path, or full of stones, but I can see how weeds had begun to choke my trust in the Word of God which told me "Be anxious for nothing". I saw myself living and working for reasons other than God's glory.

I read Revelation 3:15-17 and felt the Holy Spirit calling me out on my sin. "I know what you are doing: you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth! For you keep saying, 'I am rich, I have gotten rich, I don't need a thing!' You don't know that you are the one who is wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked!" I was becoming lukewarm because of my growing trust in financial stability and the pride in achieving it. If I continued this drift into lukewarm waters unrepentant of my ways, would God have been right in spitting me out? Does that sound like one receiving salvation?

In this conviction, I read verse 19 and accepted it with resolution. "As for me, I rebuke and discipline everyone I love; so exert yourselves, and turn from your sins!" Even though I may have felt beat up on the playground, it was more like the time my mom tackled my brother to keep him from running away to a dangerous place. It was a hard, violent action, but it kept him from going toward willful destruction. I am sure of my salvation only because the Holy Spirit's conviction brought me to repentance. This isn't to say that my exertion saves me, but it lets me know that He is at work in me. I don't want to be casual about my salvation, so I'm willing to paddle out of these waters with both hands if necessary.

This essay is in part public repentance, but it is also a challenge. I learned a serious lesson. Why wouldn't I want you to examine your heart the same way? I'm asking you to please consider these questions. What makes you think you're good soil? What makes you think that you haven't been an idolater and let the cares of life pull you away from trust in God? If you were to look deep inside yourself and see sin choking the roots of your faith, would you be willing to go through the turmoil of letting God pull it out? Or is your world so precious you would rather go on living like the Pharisees who honored God with their lips while their hearts were far away from Him?

So maybe it wasn't a gang of people surrounding me in this time of conviction. I can see it now as God speaking to me in every passage, wrestling with me, poking His finger in secret places and dislocating joints. Like I said at the beginning, it's so much better when the confrontation is one-on-one, and this is one fight I feel good about losing.

Twelve of the Twelve - Malachi and casual worship.

My friend Abe is probably tired of me ripping him off, but I have to tell this story since I'm writing about Malachi. One day, Abe tells me he can sum up the whole book in four words.

"What are they?" I ask.

He waits a moment for dramatic effect and says, "Don't F*** With God."

We laughed for a solid minute. Giggling. Seriously.

Of the three post-exile prophets, Malachi offers more of a punch in the mouth than a pat on the back. He began his ministry after the death of Nehemiah, Judah's reforming and God-fearing governor. It would seem that the hearts of the people had again grown apathetic, proud, and selfish. The first line of Malachi's prophecy sounds like one of the encouraging words of his contemporaries. "'I love you,' says the Lord." The next line calls the people out on their proud hearts. "But you ask, 'How do you show us your love?'"

This is an important theme in Malachi. God reveals an aspect of His perfect and unchanging character and rebuts the arrogant questions of the people. Like Job, the people have no response. The writer intends for the reader to understand this: God is perfect.

Every believer, including me, you, and your pastor, we've all questioned God in some way by asking, "Do you really know what's best?" I can say that we ask this question with confidence because it lies at the heart of every sin. When we question God's perfection - His perfect love, goodness, justice - we begin to listen to the lie that we know better.

Some food in the temple was considered holy, special and set apart. The priests thought to themselves, "Well, it's all food. We can offer whatever and that should please God." God responds in Malachi 1:6-7, "'A son honors his father and a servant his master, But if I'm a father, where is the honor due me? And if I'm a master, where is the respect due me?' says the Lord of Hosts to you priests who despise my name. You ask, 'How are we despising your name?' By saying that the table of the Lord doesn't deserve respect." The priests at the time ignored God's command to only sacrifice healthy, spotless lambs. They thought it was acceptable for them to offer blind, sick, and lame animals. God cuts through any possible excuse saying in verse 8, "Try offering such an animal to your governor, and see if he will be pleased with you! Would he even receive you?"

It's been fourteen years since I've been in a real fight. Maybe you wouldn't call it a real fight, but it was the last time I actually struck somebody. In 8th grade, I beat up a kid in gym class because he made a remark about my brother going to jail. It was for something minor and he was only in there for a couple of days, but I was heartbroken that week. I loved my brother even though he made a bad choice. So I lost my temper in the middle of class and knocked the kid to the floor. Then he said something that still amazes me. He sat up hugging the stomach I'd just kicked and asked with total sincerity, "What did you do that for?"

In Malachi 2:13-14, the people hug their own stomachs after the beatdown in chapter 1. "Here is something else you do: you cover the Lord's alter with tears, with weeping and with sighing, because He no longer looks at the offering or receives your gift with favor. Nevertheless, you ask, 'Why is this?'"

Here are some sins Malachi addresses throughout the book: giving pathetic offerings (1:7-8), complaining about the "ritual" of worship (1:13), needless divorce (2:14), diminishing the seriousness of sin (2:17), and denying God's goodness (1:2, 3:13-15). Last night, my fiance and I met with a couple for dinner. While we talked, I casually flipped through the Archeological Study Bible and read the introduction to Malachi. The writers noted how the prophet didn't talk about gross idol worship like the pre-exile prophets. Judah hadn't taken on foreign gods like Baal again. Instead, they had given themselves over to a lame form of orthodoxy. They went through the motions. They went to church. They tossed a few dollar bills into the offering (you know, if they had cash in their wallet that morning). They lived as if God didn't care about their day to day lives.

In 3:14-15, the people said, "There is no point in serving God. What good is it to obey His orders or to walk about as mourners before the Lord of Hosts? We consider the arrogant happy; also evildoers prosper; they put God to the test; nevertheless, they escape." I have heard people in the church say similar things. It's easy to look at the world around us and wonder why the wicked have more fun. So maybe, they thought, it's not a big deal if I party like everyone else. Maybe it's okay if I take advantage of a few gray areas at work. Maybe it's okay to justify my flirting because of my wife/husband's lousy attitude. I don't have to give anything to the church. Jesus still loves me. I still pray. I'll go to heaven without having to give up my life or happiness. Right?

If all of that were so harmless, then why does God sound so pissed? Why does He want us to know He won't be effed with? Because He's holy and perfect. He deserves everything. The people of Judah were only giving God their Sabbath and holidays, not their hearts, not their lives. If you think I'm overreacting, read 2:2-3, "'If you won't listen, if you won't pay attention to honoring my name,' says the Lord of Hosts, 'then I will send the curse on you; I will turn your blessings into curses. Yes, I will curse them, because you pay no attention. I will reject your seed; I will throw dung in your faces, the dung from your festival offerings; and you will be carted off with it.'"

Every one of us, to some degree, has casually sinned in these ways. We don't always fear God and show Him the respect He deserves. If this is enough to suffer a curse and a mouthful of manure, then where can one find any hope? Malachi gives this message from God in 3:16-18, "Then those who feared the Lord spoke together; and the Lord listened and heard. A record book was written in His presence for those who feared the Lord and had respect for His name. 'They will be mine,' says the Lord of Hosts, 'on the day when I compose my own special treasure. I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. Then once again you will see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between the person who serves God and one that doesn't serve Him.'"

Our hope is found in Jesus, the son of God. Scripture tells us in Galatians how those who accept Jesus die to their old selves and are raised in Him. We are hidden in Christ. When God looks at the heart of a believer, He sees Jesus, and He spares us. In this passage, we also see a promise of a day where we will see who prospers more, the righteous or the wicked. The people of Judah may not have served Baal, but they served other idols. They were idols of money, romantic fantasies (I'm looking at you, Meg Ryan), and comfort. Ultimately, the people of Judah worshiped themselves. They thought they knew best, just as Adam and Eve thought they could be like God. It's only when we give up our lives, offer all that we have and all we are to Jesus, that we will find true life. I wouldn't want to give anything less to the God who created everything.