Have you ever had someone offer an explanation for why they would not come to a church service with the following indictment: “The Church is full of hypocrites.”? I have always bristled at that statement not because I am a pastor and want the church that I serve to be full on Sunday, but because I know my own story and my own failures of the past and present. I am very aware that I will continue to fall short of a standard I believe I should meet when it comes to worshiping a God who is holy.
Now, before I go any further, there are three things you need to know about the Old Testament system of worship. Israel’s worship included all of the things that you would expect such as the teaching of God’s word, the singing of songs and psalms, and gathering together to celebrate feasts and festivals where God was the center of it all. Included in their worship was a sacrificial system unlike the kind of sacrificial systems other people groups had. Israel’s sacrificial system was not based on paying God back for his grace and mercy, but served three primary purposes:
1. There were the sin offerings. The shedding of blood through the sacrifice of an animal without defect for the atonement of one’s sins, which ultimately pointed to the sacrifice Jesus would make in our place upon a cross (see Lev. 4; Heb. 9:22).
2. There was a Thank offering. There was also the type of sacrifice that acknowledged the goodness of God in one’s life, which is known in the Old Testament as a Thank Offering. The Thank Offering could come in all forms, shapes, and sizes (see Lev. 7:11-34; Psalm 107:21-22).
3. There was a Tithe offering. The third type of sacrifice given in the Old Testament was the tithe offering which served as a way to acknowledge that all a person had was provided by God. Giving back a portion or “tithe” was and continues to be a way of acknowledging the goodness of God (see Lev. 27:30; Num. 18:25–28; Deut. 14:22–24; 2 Chron. 31:5–6).
To be a priest, one had to belong to the tribe of Levi by birth and their primary responsibility would be to mediate the worship between all of Israel and God. According to the Law, their survival would be through what was brought to the tabernacle (when Israel was transient) and the temple (after they had inherited the Canaan). What was left from the offering, the priests were permitted to eat (see Lev. 6:14-26). When it came to the lifestyle of those serving as priests, they were to meet a standard of moral character and holiness (see Lev. 21-22). There were even certain physical requirements of the Priest to ensure that he was able to fulfill his responsibilities which included defective eyesight (Lev. 21:18-20).
Of the priest, God commanded: “They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the Lord’s food offerings, the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy…. 8You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy” (Lev. 22:6, 8). And, as for the sacrifices that were allowed:
“Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of the house of Israel or of the sojourners in Israel presents a burnt offering as his offering, for any of their vows or freewill offerings that they offer to the Lord, if it is to be accepted for you it shall be a male without blemish, of the bulls or the sheep or the goats. You shall not offer anything that has a blemish, for it will not be acceptable for you.” (Lev. 22:18-20)
God takes the worship of people seriously. When Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, offered “strange fire” on the alter where the sacrifice was, they died (see Num. 6:23). When Uzzah touched the Ark when God commanded no one to touch it, because he assumed his hand was cleaner than the dirt, he died (see 1 Chron. 13:5-14). As you are aware, the nation of Israel was divided into two nations as a result of King Solomon’s sins and disregard for the holiness of God, which eventually led to the exile of the northern kingdom and then the southern kingdom due to the disregard of who Yahweh is and the type of people they were called to be: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1:16).
If there were ever a scripture passage in the Bible that serves as a warning to how one ought to approach Almighty God, it is Malachi 1:6-14.
The One Worshiped
Malachi begins with God’s reminder to His people: “I love you.” God even calls the people by the name given to them out of a promise to bless them and by doing so, he would bless the nations through them. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians only understood the Hebrew people as exiles, but God knew them as Israel. Their response was to question His love for them, which was unfounded. The evidence of His love for Israel is seen from their birth, their growth, their faithlessness, through his discipline of them as a people, and his promise to keep His word to them. In verse five, God even assured them: “Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, ‘Great is the LORD beyond the border of Israel!”
Before the worship of the former exiles is even addressed, God reminds the priests and people who it is that they say they worship: “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 priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’” (Mal. 1:6). In this one verse, God reminds Israel of who He is: He is their Father, He is their Adonai (master), and He is Yahweh.
God is Yahweh of Hosts
To feel the weight of what is being said here, let’s consider each name briefly beginning with Yahweh. It is not only the name Yahweh that we must consider, but also what is associated with His name. The God of Israel is Yahweh-Sebaoth, which literally means, “Yahweh of Armies.” It is a name used of God seven times in Malachi 1:6-14 and 25 times throughout the little book of Malachi, which means that it is really important that Israel understand who it is that they are so indifferent towards. Quite literally, He is the all-powerful God of whom and to whom no god or person can compare. Listen to the way Isaiah describes just how awesome our God really is!
This is what the Lord says, He who is your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb: “I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth alone, Causing the omens of diviners to fail, Making fools of fortune-tellers; Causing wise men to turn back And making their knowledge ridiculous, Confirming the word of His servant And carrying out the purpose of His messengers. It is I who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited!’ And of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built.’ And I will raise her ruins again.” (Isa. 44:24–26, NASB 2020)
Who is like Yahweh-Sebaoth? The answer: NO ONE! He is the maker of all things! He stretched out the heavens all on His own! How established the galaxies? Who spoke into existence that which did not exist? When the earth was formless and desolate emptiness, who shaped the earth? Who separated the water from land? Who decked the night with billions of stars? Who separated light from darkness? Who blanketed the dirt with grass, flowers, and trees? Who created mankind in His image? To whom belongs all the credit for all these things? Here is the answer: “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who live in it” (Psalm 24:1, NASB 2020).
Yet, the response of the Priests, who should have known better, felt that offering the best on the alter in worship of Yahweh was too costly and not worth the trouble: “But 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” (v. 13).
God is Adonai
Adonai simply means master or lord. It simply means that Yahweh is the Sovereign One. The prophet Isaiah says of our Sovereign God: “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god’” (Isa. 44:6). In Deuteronomy, Moses shows just how unlike God is to anything else: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe” (Deut. 10:17). Literally, “Yahweh your Elohim is Elohim of elohims and Adonai of adonais.”
What is the point? The point is that God does not exist for us, we exist because of Him and for Him! What sets the God who is Yahweh of Hosts and Adonai apart from any other god is that He needs nothing. In fact, when it came to the sacrificial system, from the most expensive of sacrifices to the least, it is God who said: “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:9-10). The point of worship is not that God needs His ego stroked or that he lacks something that only we can give, for if He is Adonai, then He already owns it all!
How is it that you got up this morning? Who is it that is sustaining your life this very moment? It is the One who is, “the first and the last” of whom there is no comparison! This is why God’s response to the lackadaisical worship of the priests in verse 8 is appropriate: “When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And 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.”
The reason why the priests of Malachi’s day offered the blind, lame, and sick on the alter before a Holy God is because they did not fear Him even though they were fully aware of what was written many generations before them in holy Scripture: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord …” (Deut. 10:12-13).
Because neither the priests nor the people approached their worship with reverent fear, God said the thing we have heard others say, but he said it in His own way. When people say, “The church is full of hypocrites,” they demonstrate their own hypocrisy by not recognizing that they are no better. However, when God says it, He does so as one who is perfectly holy and justified to say what He said in verse 10, “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.”
God is a Father
I want you to think about something that I believe will help the weight of Malachi 1:6 settle upon your heart. It is in Yahweh’s description as a Father that sets Him apart from any other god or gods that other people worship. God’s identity as a Father is infinity linked as an attribute that we like to run to for good reason. The attribute I refer to is love. There are two passages I want you to see, the first is from the New Testament and the second is from the Old Testament; both are stating the same thing about the love of God:
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16).
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations…”
God is love. God is also just, gracious, merciful, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, and holy. Here is what I want to show you: There is a reason why we believe from the Bible that Yahweh is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who eternally exists as three distinct Persons as one God. This is why the God of the Bible and the one we worship at Meadowbrooke is not nor ever could be the same god that is worshiped in Islam, by Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, or any other group that denies that Yahweh is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible, the concept and doctrine of it is everywhere in the Bible. Now I am going to give you an example that will serve to encourage you through Malachi 1:6-14.
If God is not Triune as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before anything was ever created, how could he be a God of love without the ability to demonstrate His love? If God is not Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then in order for Him to be a God of love he would have needed to create all things include humans out of a need to love. For God to be God, He must be infinitely sufficient. For God to be Yahweh of Hosts and Adonai, he cannot be a God who has needs. Thankfully the God of the Bible is a God who does not have needs because as One God in three eternally and distinct Persons the God who is love was able to express His love within the fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Here is what this means: Creation did not come into being because for God to be a God of love He needed creatures to love. God did not call Abraham out of Ur because He needed a people to love. Israel did not exist as a nation because He needed a nation to love, and Jesus was not born of a virgin because He needed a Son to love. The Father loved the Son for all eternity within the fellowship of a God who has always existed as three person – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Love was shared between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit before time ever existed! This is why Jesus prayed before He went to the cross for our sins:
“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:24-26)
What the priests failed to realize was that their worship was intended to be an expression of their love for a Father who did not need them in order to be a God of love, but redeemed Israel because He always has been and always will be a God who is love! God does not need to be buttered up by His creatures because He is Adonai! So, when we come to verse 9, and read these words: “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?” The favor of God is not something to be bartered because He does not need anything from you!
Conclusion
Malachi 1:6-14 is a stinging indictment brought upon the lackadaisical worship of an indifferent people and their priests. The question we are left with this morning is whether or not the same could be said about us? Granted, the sacrificial system is no longer needed to be forgiven of our sins or to enter into the Lord’s presence because of a greater sacrifice that was made on our behalf. After all, we are recipients and benefactors of all that the Law, the Prophets, the Hebrew feasts, and the sacrificial system pointed to—namely Jesus Christ! Can the same be said of us that was said to Malachi’s contemporaries… those of us who claim to look, “…to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:2)?
If you are a true Christian, you have experienced the reality of what we read in John 3:16 that states: “For God so love the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Can it be said of you and I, that our worship is cold and halfhearted because we are indifferent to the One who loved us that He gave His Son to redeem us? We may not say with our lips in the way the priests said it in Malachi 1:13, but if we are honest, our posture and our actions has echoed the words of the priests: “What a weariness this is…”.
I want to read for you something Matthew Harmon wrote that I really do not believe I can improve upon, so I will let him say it for me:
How can this be, though? How can God accept cold, halfhearted, easily distracted, and rebellious worshipers like me, whose first thought in times of trouble is to question the reality of God’s love and whose second thought is usually to defend our own inadequate worship as perfectly fine? He did this by sending a true worshiper in our place, a genuinely submissive Son who gave his all as an act of wholehearted worship and love for his glorious Father, a Suffering Servant who obediently offered up his life for us and for our salvation….
Supremely, of course, Jesus offered himself as the perfect sacrifice, laying down his life patiently, for the joy that was set before him—the joy of ultimately being surrounded by a multitude of brothers and sisters from all nations in the worship of the Father. On the cross, the Father turned his face away from the Son, as if the Son were one of the inadequate, halfhearted worshipers of Malachi’s day—as if the Son were us! For the first time in all eternity, the Father slammed the door of his presence in the face of his own beloved child, as if it were Jesus who had dishonored him and served him insincerely. Yet the Son still submissively committed his Spirit to his Father in death, trusting that the Father would bless and use that perfect gift to accomplish his perfect goals.
This is what enables us now to approach God joyfully, Sunday by Sunday, and gives us hope as weak worshipers. When we come to church, we don’t ascend the mountain to a building in Jerusalem but rather come to the true heavenly Mount Zion, into the powerful presence of the living God, who is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:22–24, 29). Yet we may come into his glorious presence unafraid, for what the Father sees when he looks at us is not the failures in our worship that flow from our angry and rebellious hearts, but the Son’s perfect worship in our place that flowed from his submissive reverence. Christ’s perfect worship makes our weak and failing worship acceptable in the Father’s sight so that he welcomes us joyfully into his glorious presence.[1]
There is good news for us, because we have a Father who does not love out of need but because He is a God of love, a love demonstrated and proven through the Son. The reason why God states in verse 11 that His plan to redeem the nations will happen regardless of whether or not Malachi’s contemporaries worship Him appropriately is because: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.”
What is the appropriate response from those of us who have been redeemed by the sacrifice of the Son? As we look to the Cross of Christ, we can say: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1).
Discussion Questions:
- As a group, take turns reading through Malachi 1:6-14.
- In Malachi 1:6, there are three names for God that are listed: Father, Adonai (master, Lord), and Yahweh (God’s most intimate and covenantal name). When it comes to our worship of God, how does knowing that He is Yahweh, Adonai, and your Heavenly Father affect the way you worship Him?
- LORD of hosts from Hebrew is literally Yahweh of Armies, which is a name that assures us of the absolute and infinite power of God. Malachi repeats this name 25 times in four short chapters; why do you think this name for God is heavily repeated?
- Have members of your LIFE Group read Leviticus 21:6-8; 22:22; Deuteronomy 15:19-21. How were the Priests and the rest of Israel to approach their worship of God? What kind of worship was Israel accused of in Malachi 1:6-14?
- According to verse 8, it seems that Israel had more respect for their governor (most likely a Persian appointee) than they did of the LORD of hosts. What are some ways that we may demonstrate more respect for things, events, or persons more than the LORD of hosts?
- Based on what you have learned so far from the sermon series in Malachi, how did God treat Israel as a Father of his children? What are some ways Israel failed to treat God as a father?
- Read Matthew 22:15-22; have someone in your group volunteer to lend any coin to pass to each person in your group. If the image on the coin reflects our government and the image we bear reflects our Creator, what does it mean to “render” to God what belongs to God?
- Have three members in your group read each of the following passages: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, and Romans 12:1-2. In your opinion, what should worship look like for the Christian?
- In what ways can casual worship resemble Israel’s defective worship? How does such worship “despise” the name of God?
- Ask members of your LIFE Group volunteer to read the following scripture passages: Malachi 1:11; Revelation 15:3-4; Isaiah 45:5-6, 22-23; Philippians 2:9-11. How do these passages from the Bible encourage you… even in full awareness of your failures?
- In light of Matthew 28:19-20, how will God accomplish Malachi 1:11? How do the passages listed in question #10, and the Matthew 28:19-20 passage empower your worship?
