Malachi 3:1-4 Sermon

second sunday in advent

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

 

Refined

Malachi 3:1-4

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. ² But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. (NIV)

Stroll around inside a jewelry store for a bit, and you’ll appreciate how stunning gold and silver can be.  Of course you know that it didn’t always look that way.  That ring wasn’t plucked out of a mine in a perfect circle which just happened to be sized for your finger.  Obviously it was formed into that shape somewhere along the line.  Even before it was ever shaped into anything however, the metal had to be refined.  Refining is the process by which a metal or some other substance is purified.  While this process today may very well be carried out using chemicals, it is also still done the way it was done in biblical times: with heat.  In the case of gold or silver, the temperatures must reach extreme heat, nearing 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.  As the metals reach such temperatures, they begin to melt, and eventually all the impurities burn off and what remains is the precious metal in its purest form.

But you know that in referring to the process of refining in his message through the prophet Malachi, God was not in the least interested in gold or silver, or any precious metal for that matter. No, he was interested in something much more valuable to him: souls.  And while precious metals can still retain a level of worth even if they aren’t 100% pure, that isn’t the case when it comes to souls.  No, the only soul that is acceptable to God is a pure soul, a soul without any impurities at all.  Only perfection will do; anything less does not pass the test.

This of course presents a big problem for you and me, as it did for Malachi’s audience.  You see, perfection’s not really our thing.  We’re kind of unqualified to achieve the whole “purity” thing.  It’s not that we don’t want to; it’s that we can’t.  And we know it.

So what does that mean?  Well, for people like you and me, who have been so firmly convinced by the Scriptures that we cannot achieve God’s standard of perfection by anything that we do, that can often result in our favoring one of two options.  One option is to believe that because we know full well that we cannot achieve perfection, that we don’t even bother to try.  In some way we may actually believe that we might offend God if we try to live a holy life, if we try to strive for the perfection that he demands.  We are further convinced that this off-the-wall idea finds additional support in the Bible’s teaching about justification, that is, that a person is forgiven, is declared “not guilty” on the basis of faith, not works.  Because we’re saved by faith alone, we want to keep obedience and righteousness completely out of the equation, as if we’re afraid that God might not know the difference between a person’s worthless attempts at self-righteousness and believing fruits of faith.  God wants us to know that we’re saved by faith alone, so we are content to leave many a good deed undone, as if to say to God, “see, my lack of good works serves as more proof that I know I’m saved by faith and not saved by works.”

The other choice we may be inclined to opt for is not so much an intentional avoidance of doing anything good, but a decreased concern about doing what’s wrong.  The reasoning – if you can call it that – takes the previous thought a step further.  In addition to the “I can’t be perfect, so why bother trying,” we take the gospel too far and it becomes a safety net for a life that is less concerned with the more frequent occurrences of sin and evil.   In other words, not only is trying to be perfect a waste of time, sin becomes less troubling and more welcome because “we’re forgiven.”  “I’m not accountable for my actions – I’m forgiven.”  “Telling the truth isn’t a requirement for heaven – I’m forgiven.”  “Let’s celebrate with yet another drink too many – we’re forgiven.”

Both approaches, “Since I’m saved by grace, I don’t have to do good works to strive for perfection,” and “I’m forgiven anyway, so what’s a little ‘whoopsie’ here or there” are both extremely dangerous from a spiritual standpoint.  Neither of them stems from faith.  Neither of those philosophies come from the new man in us, but from the Old Adam, still clinging for dear life, even trying to take the good that God does in our lives and twist and tangle it up.

God wants souls that are free from impurities.  Souls that buy into either of those two approaches demonstrate that they are anything but pure.  So what does God want?  What would he prefer instead?  Malachi spoke of a messenger God would send, one who “will prepare the way” (v.1).  During this season of Advent, one name comes to mind when speaking of a messenger sent to prepare the way: John the Baptist.  As we heard in this morning’s Gospel, which quoted another OT prophet, Isaiah, John the Baptist was the fulfillment of those prophesies.

It was really John the Baptist’s message that revealed God’s method for seeing to it that souls meet his standard of quality.  He spoke of preparing and straightening paths and crooked roads.  Those pictures of road repair are another way to depict the actions  referred to by Malachi, who said, “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver” (v.3).  There it is, God’s preferred plan for purifying souls: seeing to it that they are refined. 

But what does that mean?  God isn’t literally going to put us through a fire in order to melt away the impurities; that much we know.  But it might feel that way as we endure the painful process that God is referring to: the process of repentance.  Only through the refining fires of repentance are souls made pure and right and presentable before God.

So why don’t we just go this route first?  Why instead to we sometimes default back to the previous to options we spoke of?  Because the process of repentance is painful.  It isn’t just a general awareness or acknowledgment of sin; that we “know we’re sinners already so let’s move on” type of things.  The refining fires of repentance are the coming face-to-face with the impurities of my sin – owning up to them and confessing them before God, admitting that we know how dangerously damning each sin is.  Repentance finds us open and exposed before God, with nowhere to hide and no one to blame but ourselves for our sin.  And that hurts.

But when we keep the end result in mind, we endure the pain so that we can be renewed entirely through the refining fires of repentance.  This process removes the impurities.  It cleanses.  It purifies.  It alone makes us acceptable in God’s sight, because it is an admittance that we wouldn’t be acceptable in God’s sight apart from Christ, who paid the ultimate price to remove the impurities of our sin.  He gave his life. 

The picture of being refined offers additional comfort if we carry it a bit further.  Malachi wrote, “He will sit as a refiner…” (v.3).  When the fire finally got hot enough for the metal to melt, the refiner had to pay close attention.  It wasn’t the type of job in which he attempts to multi-task.  No, just as the picture on the front of your worship folder depicts, he had to keep a close eye on things.  He needed to remain by the fireside throughout the process to ensure that the metal got hot enough to burn off the impurities, but also so that it wouldn’t be allowed to overheat, which could end up making the precious metal dull and lose its luster.

God, as we go through this process of refining, never leaves us or forsakes us.  He remains by our side.  As repentance forces us to come face to face with the harsh, ugly reality of our sin, it’s possible it might be too much for the Christian.  The devil may step in and attempt to convince us that our sin is too great, too serious, too unforgivable to bring before God and cause us to despair.  But God will remain by our side throughout as we are refined, that he might shoo the devil as needed by forcing him to recall the cross and the tomb.  God will continue to keep his eye on us, not about to lose one of his children through repentance, when it is that very method by which he seeks to purify his children in the first place.

Not only does he remain by our side throughout, never leaving us, but he also knows just how long we need to be in the fires of refinement.  You know how the refiner could tell when the impurities had burned away and it was time to remove the metal from the fire?  It was when he could see his shiny reflection in the gold or silver.  That was when he knew it was ready.  That is when it was pure.

So too, God is constantly observing us.  As he steadies and strengthens our faith through his Word and his sacrament, his reflection becomes more and more clear.  When he looks and sees his reflection with perfect clarity – when he sees Christ – dear friends, that is when the process of refinement has served its purpose.  And that is really what repentance does.  It leads us to look at ourselves and admit that we’re full of impurities, and to recognize that the only way that will ever change is through Christ and his forgiveness.  While here on earth, that process is ongoing, because the dross of our sin is always present.  But when the final Advent takes place, when Jesus returns to bring us home, the refining process will have served its purpose.  At that point the soul – your soul – so treasured by God, will be completely free of any impurities.  In Christ it will have been perfectly refined in the fires of repentance.  In Christ you are and you will on that day, be pure.  Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)