The Pollution of the Priesthood
Notes
Transcript
God has laid on my heart to title this message The Pollution of the Priesthood. We are going to be continuing our sermon series through the book of Malachi. We are in chapter 1 verses 6-14 if you will go ahead and find that.
While you are looking at that, I want you to picture a leader in the church, maybe it was someone you knew growing up or maybe it was some sort of televangelist. But imagine the most corrupt and conniving church leader or preacher you have ever seen. More than likely, this person was driven by ulterior motives and had some sort of agenda behind them. Maybe it didn’t start off that way, but it got that way.
That is what we are dealing with in our text today. Priests who have lost their way. They are abusing their position and they have lost what worship truly means.
I want to begin by sharing a word of prayer and then reading our text for today.
6 “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?’
7 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.
8 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.
9 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.
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.
11 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.
12 But you profane it when you say that the Lord’s table is polluted, and its fruit, that is, its food may be despised.
13 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.
14 Cursed be the cheat 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.
God, through his grace and mercy, has established the church for various reasons. We are employed to take the gospel out into our world to see others come to faith in Jesus. We are employed to help others out in times of need. We are here to be a lighthouse of sorts, for people to see a light in the dark.
But none of this happens apart from the fact that God established the church for worship. That is why we are here. As a church, we focus our worship on a few aspects. We worship through the reading of God’s word, through prayer, through giving, through singing, through baptism and the Lord’s supper, and through the preaching of God’s word.
But what happens when a church loses their way? When they lose sight of why they exist. We see that here in the temple in our passage. The Israelites are no longer captive. They have returned home and after about 100 years, the temple had been rebuilt and they have resumed what seemingly was normal life. But, the people and more specifically the priests in our text today have lost what was designed to be their first love.
God warns us what happens in the book of Revelation when a church loses sight of its first love, which is worship of Jesus.
2 “ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.
3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.
4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
This is a stark warning to a real church in the first century that had lost its way. God told them that if they did not repent and return to what God had intended for them, that he would take away their light. Wow. I do not want this to be Immanuel Baptist. I want to see us be a light in the darkness, a lighthouse on top of the hill right here in our neighborhood, in our city, county, state, country, and ultimately world.
So we must keep our focus right. Yes, we can focus on things such as outreach and teaching and giving and service work. But all of these things are not primary for the church. They are all outflows of what truly is primary, of what God deserves from us.
God Deserves Pure Worship
God Deserves Pure Worship
For the Israelites, God has defined for them throughout the Old Testament as to what pure worship would need to look like for them. They would focus on what they brought God to the temple priest for sacrifice. This is part of what defined their worship, because behind what they brought was their heart. God deserves pure worship.
Are we giving God what he deserves?
For us to determine if we are giving God what he deserves, we need to define what worship is. What we are going to do is we are going to look at our passage and see where the priests in Israel were going wrong and define what worship is for us today through that.
Worship is about God’s name
Worship is about God’s name
Our passage today starts off with another dispute. Speaking to the people of Israel, God puts forth a statement with a question.
6 “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?’
God is speaking to the people of Israel, but specifically he is addressing the priests. If God is going to speak to his people, he needs to go to the front line first. The priest were the ones who could fix this issue of worship with the people.
I really like my truck. It has some years on it, some miles on it, but it is paid for so I really like it. Not long after I bought it, I had a light come on my dashboard. It is telling me that my sensors on my airbags are bad. Now, this doesn’t effect the way that my truck drives. But the danger is still there. I could do what I know some folks do with their check engine lights and put a piece of black tape over it so I don’t see it, but the danger is still there. The only way to remove the danger of my airbags not deploying is to fix the sensor.
The root of the problem for the worship of the people was the priesthood. So, God has to go right to the problem and address is so that he can fix it. He uses the ideas of him being a father and a master. This is not positions or titles that are reserved for the relationship between God and a priest but it is for all of God’s people towards him. The relationship of a father is one of love and the relationship of a master is one of direction and correction. God is displaying these relationships with the priesthood right here. What he says to them is an attempt to correct them.
God tells them that they have despised his name. And just like we saw last week, they act like they are oblivious. The return question to God is one that is defensive. What do you mean that we have despised your name??? Instead of respect and honor, God received contempt in return. When we are convicted, how do we respond? Are we humbled, or are we defensive? So God tells them how.
7 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.
8 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 pollution of the food being offered to God. We have 2 aspects here. We have the heart of the priests and the conditions of the sacrifice that God is addressing. Both are subpar. In fact, God calls those things evil. Not bad or low quality, but evil.
But why the priests? If people are bringing in animals that aren’t worthy, then why does it fall on the priest and not the people? This is because the role of the priest is to be a boundary enforcer in worship.
10 You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean,
11 and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses.”
It is the duty of the priests to keep worship within certain lines. Today, the pastor should be doing this. Now, I am not oblivious to the fact that this has fallen to the wayside in many ways. Has anyone ever been at a church that anyone and everyone can have an idea of how things need to be and the leadership will just let them do whatever? This is dangerous. This is why God warns us in Revelation 2 of what happens when a church forgets their first love.
Let’s take this specifically to the pastor because we don’t have priests in the church today. The pastor is a protector for the flock. When churches begin to go off the rails, it is mainly because the pastor is not doing his job. In Acts 20, Paul warns the pastors and overseers of the church to keep a close watch of the flock so that they are protected from being led astray. He doesn’t warn the committee chairs or the deacons. This is the duty of the pastor.
Taking this back to the priests, they had lost their direction. They were letting people bring in unworthy sacrifices and it was affecting the worship. What they were letting happen was evil. It was disgracing the name of God.
He even gives them an example of how detestable it is and the fact that they know it is like that. He asks them if they were to take an offering like that to the governor, how would he react. Would he accept it or would he despise it? The priests were not oblivious to what they were doing They knew that it was evil.
In verse 9, God moves from the example of the governor to himself.
9 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.
Try this on me and see what happens. If you give the governor a gift and he detests it, will God show you favor for the same offering?
We are going to get into it more later on in the book of Malachi, but let’s think about our offerings to God with our finances. I was joking the other night at bible study about our government and God and said if 10% is good enough for God, it should be good enough for our government. Let’s flip that. What if God required of us what the government does? Will that change our worship. Are we willing to lay it all down for us to continue to worship? I am afraid that if some of us began to take our worship more seriously, we would see that we are not willing to pay the price of it.
How are we lacking in our worship? Are we giving like God wants us to? Are we serving like God wants us to? Are we giving of our time and talents and treasure like God truly wants us to? These are all questions that God is trying to pose to the Israelites that we need to evaluate as we are in church today. Because if we are not worshiping like we should be, if we aren’t giving and serving like we should be, then why are we even here?
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.
If the priests aren’t going to regulate worship and keep these guardrails for the people as they bring in the sacrifices, then someone needs to just shut the doors. If our worship is not right, then God doesn’t want us here. That is extremely heavy to think about. Yes, I know that there may be someone here who is searching for truth and they are looking right here. I am not talking about that person.
I am saying that if your intention to come to worship is to worship, then it needs to be right. Worship is about the name of God. It isn’t about any sort of performance. It isn’t about building connections with other people. Worship is the connection we have with God. And there is a right attitude towards worship and a wrong attitude towards worship. Worship is not about our name, it is about God’s name.
11 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 God says here is to be taken less as a statement and more as a promise. The promise of pure worship and the glorifying of his name. But, if you think that God needs you to come and that his name won’t be made great unless you are the one doing it, you have this all wrong. God is the one who makes his name great.
I see 2 things in scripture that help me to know the truth of this statement. The first one is the fact that we are saved because God saves us. God is the one who draws us in, he is the one who gives us a new heart, a heart that has the desire to worship him and to make his name great. But the other thing I see in scripture is that even if we refuse to do so, God’s name will be made great. Jesus tells us this in Luke 19:40 “40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”” If you stay silent, God will use even the inanimate objects in our world to cry out. Worship is about God’s name and it will be made great.
If you are here today and you are searching, that is wonderful. I am not here to tell you any sort of lie such as God has some great plan for your life or that God wants you to be rich or healthy or popular. Because the reality is that those things are not the ultimate plan for God. His plan is to make his name great. And you may be part of that plan. “How do I know if I am part of that plan?”
To know if you are part of that plan is by knowing if God is drawing you near to him. The reason that God draws us in is because our sin has separated us from him. We need redeeming because of our sin and that only happens through Jesus Christ. The bible tells us that we need to repent and believe. To repent means to turn. So we turn from our sin and we turn to Jesus. But what do we believe? We believe that Jesus is God. That he was born miraculously, that he walked this earth sinlessly, that he went to a cross and died literally, and that he actually rose from the grave. That he died in your place because you could never carve out your own path back to God.
This belief is what saves us and this belief is what changes us. We want to be more like Jesus. To love the things that he loves and hate the things that he hates. And, ultimately, for God to use us as instruments of pure worship to make his name great.
But, our text shows us that there is something else to do with worship as well.
Worship is about our hearts
Worship is about our hearts
We are going to see this in our text but I also want to say it with an explanation. We are going to worship, it is about what we worship. Worship is about our hearts. The things that our hearts love are the things that we will worship. If our heart is sinful, we are going to worship the wrong things. That is why it all comes down to the heart.
In our bible study on Wednesday, we were in 1 Samuel when God was giving the people a king because that is what they wanted. God chose Saul and Samuel was anointing him as king. And we see a very specific detail in that text that shows us how important our hearts are in worship.
9 When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these signs came to pass that day.
Our hearts are wicked. No one has ever had to be taught to do evil. Our hearts are sick and evil. So we need new ones. Worship is about our hearts. If we are to have pure worship, our hearts need to be right. The condition of our heart is going to affect how we treat the name of the Lord.
12 But you profane it when you say that the Lord’s table is polluted, and its fruit, that is, its food may be despised.
13 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.
God brings up the offerings. He says that the table has been polluted by what they have brought. He even calls it despicable. Why should he accept it? This is not worshipful what they are doing.
The condition of the offering is a reflection of the condition of their hearts.
This is important for both the priests and the people. The priests should be regulating what is actually offered while at the same time, the people should be bringing acceptable worship. If the people are not bringing acceptable worship, the priests should be stepping in and stopping it. But no, they are taking it to the altar for the people.
What is different for us today is that the pastor does not serve in the role of the priest like they did in the OT. Hebrews chapter 4 tells us that Jesus is now our great high priest. He is our mediator between man and God. We don’t have to take anything to a priest as an offering as a means of the remediation of sins because Jesus was the offering that was given up once for all so that we no longer have to.
It is about our hearts. It is about our intentions. We must be right and pure with what we are doing in worship. Because God knows our hearts even greater than we know our own hearts.
14 Cursed be the cheat 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.
We must be careful and intentional about our worship. Because the great king, Jesus, is sitting on the throne. And his name will be feared among the nations.
Conclusion
As followers of Jesus, we truly need to evaluate our worship. We see in our text today that God does not take lightly when our worship is not what he has expected. So we ask ourselves if we are giving God what he deserves and expects or what is comfortable for us?
It is tempting to stay in the familiar. But God does not want us to only do what is comfortable. What if we are holding back in our worship towards God. And when I say worship, I am not talking about the songs we sing here. I am talking about our lives being lived out for God and not ourselves.
Does the way that we are living our lives show others that we are worshipful towards God? Others can see what we do and how we act. Is our life a testimony to the worship that God deserves.
When we open the word of God and we see where we fall short, how do we react?
All of these questions bring to light how our worship truly is. My prayer for us today is that we grow in our worship to God. Through how we live our lives, our reactions, our decisions, how we spend our time, treasure, and talents. All of these things are indicators of our worship.
Are we giving God what he deserves?
