Yard Sale Church

Yard sales are fun to visit. I like to go, but I don't like to get up early ... so most of the "good stuff" is long gone by the time I get there. So I prefer thrift stores...but...sometimes I think that the church is treated like a yard sale church. We have stuff in yard sales that have been replaced by newer brighter editions. So we toss the old one in a closet and one day decide to have a sale. We get the stuff we no longer deem necessary to our lives or our wants and we mark a quarter sale price on it and put it on a table. Not all the people who come by to look actually NEED the stuff they buy ... it's just irresistible to them. So they buy junk, take it home, try to find a use for it, and throw it in the closet for their own yard sale one day. In Malachi the Lord accused His people of offering up blind lambs and second rate crummy sacrifices ... sacrifices the human governor wouldn't even accept. Why offer these up to the King of the Universe, the Lord Almighty? Well, because we think we can get away with it. At least we're doing something! So many people do NOTHING...and our crummy sacrifices ... well ... they're probably good enough. Or so we tell ourselves. We sometimes offer up to the Lord our crummy time, energy, devotion, and effort ... saving our best for the ballfield, or the workplace, or the classroom, or wherever we spend our days. We've all seen Christians bowing down to the gods of Little League, Soccer, Television, Collections, Cars, whatever. No, we wouldn't call them gods...but they occupy most of our time and attention. Who gets the scraps ... the leftovers ... the dregs ... yep ... the Lord Almighty (Malachi uses that term about 20 times in his short book!). So in many people's thinking, the church is a yard sale church. It's meant for leftovers and hand-me-downs. Don't ever give the church your best or your most ... God will be satisfied with the scraps. And we all know that one man's trash is another man's treasure. God wants me to be happy and accepted in my little world ... He doesn't mind. If you think like that, then you are a cheat (Malachi 1:14) and you cause God weariness (Malachi 2:17) and you've spoken harshly about the Lord (Malachi 3:13). The church is no yard sale, a place for the refuse of our lives. It is not a yard sale at all...it is a Macy's where everything is new and there is an ever-changing menu of opportunities. It catches and deserves our full attention! And for every fake bauble and every facade to be found in Macy's, the reality is to be found in the Kingdom! The beauty is true and real! The value is immeasurable!