Difference and Indifference
Pastor Brett has been challenging us with the message of the Old Testament Prophet Malachi. The book was written in the 400’s BC. In short, the people of that day had become indifferent to the things of God. Despite 1400+ years of evidence to the contrary, they did not sense God’s loving commitment to them (1:2).
How did they get into such a state? How do we?
Malachi points out many behaviors that contribute to their condition. Maybe such behaviors contribute to our own indifference.
They had no heart for sacrifice, for GIVING to God’s kingdom. God got the leftovers (1:8, 1:12-13, 3:18).
Their leaders had no real personal intimacy with God (2:7).
The men were caught up in the ancient world’s version of pornography (2:12).
The vows of marriage were held as trivial (2:15-16).
They envied the arrogant and defined success by worldly definitions (3:15).
They lacked any clear ability to distinguish good from evil (3:18).
These behaviors had consequences. In the end, as Israel indulged in such behavior, they lost the ability to feel God’s love for them. Perhaps we do the same thing. Since we are so emotion based (not a bad thing in and of itself), we struggle and fall when we don’t feel God’s love for us. Eventually, we become dull and indifferent.
Malachi could point out the problem but he couldn’t provide the solution. He had no cure. However, by the bit of foreknowledge God gave Malachi, he could see the Cure approaching (4:2). Behavior gives evidence of heart condition, but stopping the “don’ts” and starting the “do’s” doesn’t cure an indifferent heart.
Thinking that we can cure ourselves is like thinking that by our works we can make the sun rise. We cannot do it. But that does not mean the sun will never rise. “The sun of righteousness WILL rise, with healing in its wings.” (Malachi 4:2).
We all need the sun of righteousness to rise. The winter of our dead, cold, indifferent works must break. Righteousness is the cure. Wholeness is the cure. Jesus is the cure.
If we are brutally honest, we are bound to indifference in the end. As willing as it might be at times, our human nature is weak at best. We don’t have the energy to make righteousness rise in our lives. We are all bound by a spiritual, internal second law of thermodynamics. In the abyss of our inner space, all of our efforts will end up as little more than low-grade warmth dispersed over far too great a distance to sustain any life.
But there is another source of energy. God calls it “righteousness.” Righteousness heals. Righteousness is a gift offerred to all. It is the one thing in the abyss of our indifference that makes a difference. The Book of Romans tells us how some end up with it. Old Testament Israel never moved from Malachi to Romans. They never moved from Indifference to Difference. Will we?
There was one man who had this inexhaustible energy. Energy to make a difference. He said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they SHALL BE FILLED.” This verse, like much of Jesus’ teaching, reveals a paradox. We cannot maintain our own righteousness anymore than we can make the sun rise. But that doesn’t mean we can be passive and “wait” for it to happen. Passivity = indifference. We have to hunger and thirst, and desire that such hunger and thirst be quenched even if we know we ourselves can never quench it.
Romans tells us how Jesus does it. How Jesus quenches the unquenchable. How indifference becomes difference. When “indifference” becomes “in Christ,” what you have left is “difference.”
You can be different. Better yet, you can make a difference…if the Difference Maker lives in you.