Malachi 1:6-14

a son honors his father and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? Says the Lord of hosts to you, O priest who despise my name.

But you say, how have we despised your name? By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, how have we polluted you? by saying that the Lord's table may be despised.

When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? When you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor. Will he accept you or show you favor, says the Lord of hosts?

And now, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you, says the Lord of hosts?

Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the doors that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain. I have no pleasure in you. says the Lord of Hosts. And I will not accept an offering from your hand.

For from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name will be great among the nations. And in every place, incense will be offered to my name in a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of Hosts.

But you profane it when you say that the Lord's table is polluted and its fruit, that is its food, may be despised. And you say, what a weariness this is, and you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts.

You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering? Shall I accept that from your hand, says the Lord?

Cursed be the chief who has a male in his flock and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

I want to work through this text under three headings. The offering of vain worship, the rejection of vain worship, and the solution. to vain worship, the offering, the rejection and the solution.

The offering of vain worship

So first off, the offering of vain worship. In verse 6, we see our main problem put on display. The great Lord of hosts, the sovereign master over all things and people, the Father of all, is not being honored, reverenced, or feared. And rather, His name is being despised by His people. But not even just His people, but His priests. Those who have been chosen and set apart to be His ministers in His presence. The Lord indicts them there in verse six, and then they ask in return, how have we despised you? And what follows is evidence of their vain worship.

In verse seven, we see the Lord there give two evidences that are really related. He tells the priest, you have offered polluted or defiled food on my altar, and you have said that my table is despised. Now the question is, what does that mean?

Well, we know that God commanded certain sacrifices be offered to Him. But the people were not allowed to offer anything that they wanted. They were not allowed to worship in any way that they chose. God had given specific commandments about the kind of sacrifices that He wanted. And among the many, there were certain animals that would be sacrificed at certain times and in certain ways. It was all very specific.

God had made it clear how he wanted to be worshipped. But regardless of the different animal sacrifices, one thing was the same. The animals had to be without blemish. The Lord wanted the very best that they had. If an animal was blind or had a broken leg or a disease, or even if they had acquired it from a foreigner, it wasn't acceptable for a sacrifice. He required a perfect sacrifice.

And the reason why the Lord required this was to reflect the greatness of his name. Because of the greatness of my name, I deserve nothing less than the very best that you have to offer. Again, this is the great Yahweh, the one who took an old man and his barren wife and made a great nation of people, the one who redeemed his people out of slavery in Egypt, the one who in our context has shown mercy to his people and brought them back to their homeland from captivity. How worthy is he to be worshiped? How he deserves the best from his people?

And yet, what do we see in our text? Instead of offering the best, the priests have offered what is polluted to the Lord. And verse 8 there gives us the examples. They've been offering blind, sick, and lame animals to the great Lord of hosts. And by offering these defiled animals to the Lord, they're treating His table as something to be despised rather than something to be honored. They're treating it as almost worthless or like it doesn't even matter. And ultimately, this is how they're treating the Lord Himself.

Now, these priests were probably not literally saying out loud, Lord, your altar is worthless and you're not worth better sacrifices, but their actions said it loudly. And look at the rebuke there of the Lord in verse 8, in the second part of verse 8. He says, present that, these blemished offerings,

present that to your governor. Will he accept you or show you favor?

The answer is clearly no. And in this way, they are treating the great king as less glorious than an earthly governor. They have more reverence for this earthly ruler than they do their own God and Redeemer, and yet it doesn't end there.

If we look in 12 and 13, we actually see more evidences of this vain worship. Not only are they despising His name by offering polluted sacrifices, but in verse 13, we see that the priests have become weary of worshiping the Lord. They've grown tired of the work they've been called to do. And these priests, they had been set apart by God. It was a privilege that no one else got. Yet instead of treating the worship of God and his presence as a privilege, they're treating it as burdensome, as weary. They had forgotten the crazy reality that sinners could somehow come close to the presence of the righteous God and live. They had lost their fear and their awe of the Lord.

And we see one last evidence or one last offering of this vain worship in verse 14 there. Folks are vowing an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord, and yet when the time comes, they offer him something blemished instead. The people here are bringing polluted offerings to the priest, and the priest are offering them to the Lord anyways. All in all, the priest and the people are offering vain worship to the Lord.

They are worshipping Him externally in a way and yet internally having no fear of Him, no love of Him. Instead of worshipping God according to His word, they're worshipping Him according to their own preferences, their own desires and comfort even. Instead of realizing the immense privilege it is for sinners to draw near to God in His presence almost, they treat worship as a burdensome, weary task that they have to do.

Why do we worship

They are offering vain worship. But the question for us this evening is how are we worshiping the Lord in our lives? Are we offering the Lord vain worship? And one way to answer that question is by asking yourself, why do you worship the Lord? Why do you offer to God any of your time or energy or thoughts or whatever it may be?

Do we worship the Lord because it's the right thing to do? Do we worship maybe because our families have always worshiped? Do we do this whole Christianity thing because it's a pretty good moral code to live by? Why do we worship this evening?

Friends, if our worship does not spring from a deep fear and a reverence and love for God and His glorious name, then it's vain worship. Are we like these people, a priest in Malachi, worshipping God externally while internally really having no fear of him? They were making sacrifices all the time to the Lord. They were worshipping him in this way. But again, it did not come from a heart of love or reverence. It was just empty external religion.

Are we worshipping him according to his words? according to his truth or according to our own desires and preferences or comforts. These priests and the people began to offer God whatever they wanted, regardless of what his word had said, regardless of the fact that he is glorious and deserves the best that they had. And there must have been a thought in their mind at some point, man, at least we're offering something. Yeah, it may not be what you told us to offer, it may not be what you deserve, but at least we're offering something, right?

That is vain worship. Do we feel this absolute privilege of coming into God's presence in worship, or do we treat worship as a burdensome task that we really dread? The entirety of our lives should be worshipped to the Lord from a genuine love and a fear of Him.

The rejection of vain worship

So what are we offering to Him this evening? I want us to see now our second point, the rejection of vain worship. The Lord cares about how He is worshipped, and we see this in His response to the priest. Look with me there in verse 10. Read that again with me. It says,

O that there were one among you who would shut the doors that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain. I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand.

The Lord rejects this empty worship. He says it would be better not to worship him at all than to continue to offer this vain worship. He would rather these priests shut the door, put out the fire, than continue to offer this empty worship. to him. He takes no pleasure in it, he says. He won't accept it. That kind of responds to this statement of at least I'm offering something, right?

The Lord desires true and pure worship or no worship at all. And why is it this way? Why is it such a big deal how we worship the Lord? Why won't he accept empty external worship? because of the glory of His great name. This text opens with the problem that the Lord's name is not being feared or honored. And then right in verse 11, right in the middle of our text, look what 11 says. The Lord says, I'm not gonna accept these offerings for or because

from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations. In every place incense will be offered to my name. And a pure offering for my name will be great, says the Lord of hosts.

And then if you go all the way to the end of our text in verse 14, look how it closes there. The Lord had just said, I'm not going to accept these blemished offerings from you,

for I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

The Lord will not accept blemished or imperfect offerings because of the greatness of his name.

The reason why the Lord cannot accept this vain worship is because of the glory of who He is. Because of His very character, His very nature, our great God must be worshipped above all else. He is deserving of the very best that we have to offer. Not just what we have left over to give to Him. Not even what we feel like offering Him at times. As we see the glory of God, especially in the light of the gospel, it is only reasonable to offer ourselves to him as living sacrifices.

Oh, have we forgotten the privilege it is to draw near into the presence of a holy God. May we not treat worship as a burdensome task, but rather see the glorious reality that because of Christ, we may enter boldly into God's presence.

The solution to this vain worship

So lastly, in closing this out, what is the solution to this? Our third and final point here, the solution to Thane worship. I opened this devotional kind of wanting to speak to two audiences this evening. On the one side, maybe you're here tonight realizing, man, I have worshiped the Lord externally, but my heart is far from Him. With so much going on in my life right now, man, worship and serving the Lord just seems like an extra burdensome task. Maybe you've realized that by your actions, you've actually had more reverence for other things even over the Lord, that you haven't given Him much at all and definitely not your best. Maybe you've realized you've been offering the Lord vain worship.

Or on the other side, maybe you're here this evening frustrated with yourself. You've come to know the glorious God and his mercy in Christ. You want nothing more than to worship him truly, reverently, and offer him the best worship and service. And yet when you look at your life, you always feel like your best falls utterly short of what he deserves. You feel as though even your best is vain worship because he deserves so much better than what you can give.

What is the solution to this vain worship in either case? What is the solution to these blemished offerings in this broken priesthood in our vain insufficient worship? Well, ultimately, the solution is found in the gospel. And look back with me there at verse 9. Verse 9 says,

And now entreat the favor of God that he may be gracious to us.

If you're in here realizing, man, I've been offering vain worship, the solution is actually not do better or try harder or offer better sacrifices. The problem of vain worship is an internal problem, and therefore changing the external behavior can't actually fix it.

Entreat the favor of God that he may be gracious to you. Turn to him in confession of your vain worship and ask him to forgive you and change you. Meditate upon the glorious reality of the gospel, upon who God is and what he's done for you in Christ. The great king has died for a disobedient people. And as we do that, we will find all the motivation and strength we need to worship God in fear and in reverence as he deserves. May we offer him our first and the best of our worship.

And however, we must be careful that we don't fall on the other side. Because when we come to see something of the glory of God and how great He is and His mercy in Christ, we realize more and more how far short that our best offerings fall. As we grow in our fear and our love for Him, at the same time, we grow more aware that we can never offer to God what He truly deserves. The very best of our service, the very best of our spiritual offerings, the very best of our sermons are imperfect and fall short.

Even if these people and the priest here offered what God required, the very best that they had, it still couldn't make them acceptable in His sight. The gospel is the solution to our insufficient worship. I want to say again, entreat the favor of God that He may be gracious to you. Turn to Him, confessing your insufficient worship, and then meditate on the glorious reality of the gospel. Jesus has come as our great high priest who had no sin of his own to atone for, unlike the priest in our text, and he has offered a truly perfect, unblemished sacrifice on our behalf.

And now all of those in him are not only acceptable, But our worship and our service, though imperfect, is acceptable in Christ Jesus. So to sum all of this up, the Lord is great and he deserves our best offerings. And yet even our best offerings are only acceptable to God through our great High Priest, Jesus Christ. May we worship the Lord with the best offering we have while resting and trusting in Christ's perfect offering for us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening and Lord, I'll be the first to admit that the very best of my worship, the very best of my offerings fall so short of the glory of your name. Lord, what could we offer you in return for the great mercies that you have done for us? Father, I just pray tonight, Lord, that if there is one in here who has been worshiping you from just a place of, just externally, but not from a place of love and fear, Lord, I just pray that you would burden their heart, Lord, that you would convict them of that, that they would come to you in confession, Lord, that they would remind themselves of the grand truths of the gospel, and that they would willingly, joyfully worship you in the fear of your name.

And Lord, for the burdened saint in here tonight that maybe feels the insufficiency of their worship and feels like, man, we just can't ever do anything that is worthy of you. Lord, I pray that they would turn their eyes to see their great high priest and that they would rest in the perfect sacrifice that he has offered on our behalf. Lord, we thank you so much for your grace for us and your patience with us, Lord God, even in our failings. God, may we live this truth out in our lives each day. We just pray this all in Christ's name and for his glory. Amen.