DISINTERESTED WORSHIP

Introduction

-{Malachi 1}

-So, next year in July Trish and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary. But suppose when our anniversary date roles around I decide to celebrate it by just heating up some leftovers and then I decide that I’m going to go off to a movie all by myself, and then when I get home I ignore her and just go to bed. What would happen? I would definitely be in the dog house both figuratively and literally because our dog has a dog house in our backyard, and that would be my residence for the rest of my life.

-If that would be the way I treat her on such a special occasion, what does that say about what I think of her and how much I value her? My actions would speak volumes about how I really feel. I mean, sure, maybe for a time I could say all the right things and go through the motions of affection, but in the end what’s really in my heart is going to come out in my actions and attitudes. You can’t fake these things forever.

-The reason I bring this up is because there are a lot of Christians in Western society who have grown up in cultural Christianity, meaning they know how to give the right answers, they know how to act the part, but what’s really on their heart and what they really think about God is going to come through in their attitude eventually. And quite often, the time when it really shows through is in worship—not just the worship of gathering together as a church, but even in their own personal worship (or lack thereof). When they worship, they really show no interest in God at all, but go through the motions.

-Worship (in the various ways that it can be expressed) is a time to demonstrate to God His worth to us. If our worship is fervent and heartfelt, it means we think God has great worth and value. And when I talk about fervent/heartfelt worship, I don’t mean singing loudly or raising hands or things like that, but it means that in your heart you hold the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in high esteem. But, there are many whose faces and demeanor show that they really do not hold God as valuable—they are very much disinterested in showing God His worth.

-And what I want you to really consider today is that disinterested worship comes from hearts that are disinterested toward God. Meaning, that disinterested worship comes when you really don’t think too highly of God if you think about Him at all. The more you value God for being God, the greater esteem you will accord to him, and the more genuine the worship. The prophet Malachi had something to say about that.

Malachi 1:6–14 NET 2nd ed.

6 “A son naturally honors his father and a slave respects his master. If I am your father, where is my honor? If I am your master, where is my respect? The Lord of Heaven’s Armies asks you this, you priests who make light of my name! But you reply, ‘How have we made light of your name?’ 7 You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask, ‘How have we offended you?’ By treating the table of the Lord as if it is of no importance. 8 For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them to your governor! Will he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 9 “But now plead for God’s favor that he might be gracious to us”. “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 10 “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you. 11 For from the east to the west my name will be great among the nations. Incense and pure offerings will be offered in my name everywhere, for my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 12 “But you are profaning it by saying that the table of the Lord is common and its offerings despicable. 13 You also say, ‘How tiresome it is.’ You turn up your nose at it,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and instead bring what is stolen, lame, or sick. You bring these things for an offering! Should I accept this from you?” asks the Lord. 14 “There will be harsh condemnation for the hypocrite who has a valuable male animal in his flock but vows and sacrifices something inferior to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and my name is awesome among the nations.”

-{pray}

-The prophet Malachi was writing at a time when the Jews returned to the land from exile. But it did not take very long for them to become completely indifferent to God and His law. So, God spoke through the prophet Malachi to confront them about their indifference toward Him, to hopefully shake them out of their lethargy and bring them back to a warm relationship with their God.

-Here, God confronts them about the fact that they are demonstrating their indifference toward Him through disinterested worship. They go through a lot of motions of worshipping God, but by the way that they do it they show what they really think about God, and it appears they don’t think very highly of Him. And as we consider the aspects of disinterested worship that Malachi confronts the Jews with, I want us to consider our own worship. There are three aspects that we find in our passage:

1) The seed of disinterested worship

-Where does this disinterested worship spring from or grow from? God through Malachi points out that it starts with what they really think about God. God confronts them about their attitude toward Him. He says that the natural order of things is that a son will give honor to his father. When the children are obedient to God’s law, they follow the command to honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. When they are disobedient, they do not give honor.

-In the Old Testament, God considered Himself to be the Father with the nation of Israel being the child. And God asks them since He is their Father, where is the honor that is due Him, because their hearts and their thoughts and their actions and their words do not honor Him? And this is something we ourselves need to consider. Those who have believed in Jesus Christ are adopted as children of God, so God is our Father. Let me ask you, where is His honor? Do you honor Him, especially in times of worship?

-Another aspect of the natural order of human relationships is that a servant respects his master. It’s actually the word FEAR and is speaking of reverence and respect due to an authority. Not only is God Father, He is also Master, Lord over everything that exists. And God has to ask them, since I am your master, where is My respect? Where is the fear and reverence due Me? We know from Scripture that the fear of God is the beginning of all knowledge and wisdom—a proper perspective on who God is, is the fear of the Lord. And we know that for us Jesus is not only Savior, He is also Lord and Master. Where is the fear and reverence and respect that is due Him?

-Worship is off when the thoughts and feelings of God’s people toward the Triune God is completely off. We say one thing with our lips, but in our hearts we show Him no honor or respect. The Lord really hits it when He says through the prophet:

Isaiah 29:13 ESV

13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

-And God boils it down to one description in v. 6: YOU MAKE LIGHT OF MY NAME. Other versions will say you despise My name or you show contempt for My name. The name of God represents His reputation and being and character. To make light of it means that it holds no weight in your life. It means that you have a callous disregard for who God is. No, you might not just come out and admit it, but it shows itself. You really don’t care who God is. You treat God like He is on the same level as anybody else. You disregard Him as the Sovereign Creator and Sustainer and Lord over everything. You disregard His grandeur and excellence and majesty.

-It makes me think of those stories you hear of Hollywood celebrities who think that they are above the rest of humanity because of their fame. And then someone doesn’t give them the honor that they think they’re due, and they’ll ask that person, DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? They think that their name and fame grants them special privileges. But, the thing is, they are human like everybody else so they aren’t due any special treatment because of their name. If some snobby star came up to me like that I’d be like, “No, I don’t know who you are and I really don’t care.” Another human being is not above any other human being no matter what privilege you think you have.

-But God is not some other mere human. He is not on our same level. We cannot just regard Him lightly. We cannot neglect Him. We cannot ignore Him. We cannot treat Him like anybody else because He isn’t like anybody else. The seed of disinterested worship comes from our skewed view of who God is—not thinking of Him rightly. And if we want to worship Him rightly, then we must think of Him rightly. He is to be honored and respected and His name and reputation is to be esteemed above anything and everybody else.

-So, that’s the seed of disinterested worship. But when the seed of disinterested worship is there, how does it show itself? How is it demonstrated?...

2) The symptoms of disinterested worship

-How were they demonstrating that they thought so little of God? First, was by their disobedience. According to v. 7 they were offering improper sacrifices. The Mosaic law gave strict instructions on what types of animals were to be part of the sacrificial system and what animals were to be excluded. For example:

Leviticus 22:22 NET 2nd ed.

22 “ ‘You must not present to the Lord something blind, or with a broken bone, or mutilated, or with a running sore, or with a festering eruption, or with a feverish rash. You must not give any of these as a gift on the altar to the Lord.

-That’s pretty straightforward, but what were the Israelites doing? According to v. 8 they were offering blind, lame, and sick animals. According to v. 13 they were offering animals that were stolen, lame, or sick. All of this was exactly what Leviticus said not to do. Because they regarded God lightly, they in turn regarded His law lightly, and that bled into their worship and their life. If I don’t respect God I’m not going to respect His law, so I’m just going to do whatever I want to do.

-Churches have opportunities to hear God’s Word and respond to God’s Word. But if we don’t really respect or honor God, we’re just going to live however we want to live. Sure, the Bible says to live like this, but I’m going to live like I want to regardless of what the Bible says—that is dishonoring to God, and your disobedience to the Word of God puts up a barrier in worship. You spend the week using your hands and your feet and your mouth to live in opposition to God’s Word, but then all of a sudden Sunday morning you come to church and use those same hands and feet and mouth to worship God, and you think that God is going to accept it?

-A second symptom of their disinterested worship was that they gave God the leftovers instead of the best. According to v. 14 it’s not like they didn’t have the proper animals for sacrifice. According to that verse they had a valuable, healthy, male animal of the flock that they could have brought in obedience to God for worshipping Him. But they didn’t want to do that. They wanted to keep the best for themselves, and give God what they didn’t need or want. Yes, I have this healthy male animal, but I want it for myself, so I’m going to give God the blind, the stolen, the lame, the sick. I pacify my conscience by giving God something—I mean it’s not like I’m just ignoring God. I’m going to fulfill some religious duty, but I’m not going to go out of my way to do it or make some sort of personal sacrifice to do it. Instead, I’m going to give God whatever is left over from what I want for myself.

-How does that look for us? I’m going to pour into my job to advance my career. I’m going to pour into my studies to advance my education. I’m going to practice day in and day out in my sport to become the best. I’m going to spend all my time and energy building up the house I want, buying the toys I want, so I can sit be at ease which is ultimately what I want. Now, none of these things are wrong in and of themselves in moderation, but then what happens is that we spend our selves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually with all the stuff that we want to do that we are left with nothing to give to God. We come to the altar of worship having drained ourselves in our pursuits, and then it’s like, “I have nothing to give God, but I’m at least going to go through the motions so I can feel better about myself and meet the cultural norms of my peer group. I gave my all to everything else and everyone else and I have nothing of significance left in my life to offer to God. So, God’s just going to get whatever I have left in the tank if there’s anything there. God, I don’t honor you enough or respect you enough to put you first.”

-This reminds me of a really crazy story about a woman and her frozen Thanksgiving turkey. The Butterball Turkey Company set up a telephone hotline to answer consumer questions about preparing holiday turkeys. One woman called to inquire about cooking a turkey that had been in the bottom of her freezer for 23 years. That's right—23 years. The Butterball representative told her the turkey would probably be safe to eat if the freezer had been kept below zero for the entire 23 years. But the Butterball representative warned her that even if the turkey was safe to eat, the flavor would probably have deteriorated to such a degree that she would not recommend eating it. The caller replied, "That's what I thought. I guess we'll just give the turkey to our church."

-I am not equating the church with God, but to me it illustrates this attitude—I think so little of God that I will give Him only what I don’t want or need for myself.

-But then a third symptom is that we treat God as common or ordinary or (although we would never say this out loud) we treat God like He’s a waste of time. In v. 7 God says that the TREAT THE TABLE OF THE LORD AS IF IT IS OF NO IMPORTANCE / DESPISED / CONTEMPTIBLE. And in v. 13 God speaks for them about the attitude they have. They say, HOW TIRESOME IT IS / HOW TEDIOUS / HOW WEARISOME it is to worship God. And they actually turn their nose up at God. What a drudgery it is to have to get into God’s Word. How tiring it is to go to church when it’s one of my few days off. What a waste of time it is to pray.

-And what does God have to say about this?

Malachi 1:10 NET 2nd ed.

10 “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you.

-God is saying, look if this is the attitude you’re going to have, it’s better to just close the doors of the church or stop going through the motions because I can see through you. Don’t waste my time or your time.

-And yet, even faced with this attitude from His own people, God still extends forgiveness and mercy when we come to Him humbly confessing and repenting and seeking Him. What a promise we have that if we seek Him with our whole heart we will find Him. And then we find:

3) The solution to disinterested worship

-God says that there will come a day:

Malachi 1:11 NET 2nd ed.

11 For from the east to the west my name will be great among the nations. Incense and pure offerings will be offered in my name everywhere, for my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

-God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for the sins of humanity and to open the doors for all to enter by grace through faith in Jesus. No longer would worship be limited to one place (Jerusalem temple) and no longer would sacrifices need to be made because the final sacrifice was made by Christ. Through Him we can rightly worship the God who is worthy—we worship in Spirit and truth. God says in v. 11 that His name will be great among the nations. In v. 14 He says His name is awesome among the nations. And we lift up the name of Jesus Christ, the name that everyone will bow down to either willingly on earth or unwillingly at the judgment. But either way, that name is going to be made great. Worship is true worship when the name of Jesus is made great, because it is all about HIM.

-It makes me think of an exchange one of those celebrity preacher types had with a congregant after their service. The church member came up to the pastor and said, “I really didn’t enjoy worship today.” And this preacher replied, “Oh, that’s OK, we weren’t worshipping you.”

-When we think lightly of God, we somehow think worship is about us. But if worship is about us that means we are worshipping ourselves. But worship is about making the name of Jesus great and awesome among the nations, starting here within us and spreading out like wildfire.

Conclusion

-So, I close with this thought. How is it that we can sit through hours on end of football and sit through a 3 hour movie, but then we say we have nothing to give God. Isn’t Christ more beautiful and majestic than our sports and entertainment? We honor our favorite football teams, we honor our favorite entertainers, but we dishonor God with a complete lack of interest in truly worshipping Him.

-Christian, where is your heart in this? Come to the altar and worship...

-It you’ve never trusted in Christ, honor God by believing in Jesus...