The Weariness of Worship

Introduction

Intro & Illustration

Pleasantries

Tonight, we are going to be in the OT, in a book that I’m sure many of you frequent often....and that is the book of Malachi!

Reading of the Word

The Priestly Problem

And if you don’t know where Malachi is, I’ll give you a helpful tip, just turn to the book of Matthew, chapter 1, and head left. It will be the first book you come to

The Priests’ (& the people’s) contempt and indifference for God

Offered polluted offerings

And tonight we are going to be looking at Chapter 1

As you are finding your way there, I want to tell you about a time when my parents, my sisters and their families and my family were spending time together up at Alpine Lake, where my parents have a cabin

God the Master

And if you know my mother and my sisters, you will know that they like to go antiquing and find deals on little things and so forth....and so one day we were out and about, all of us, together and we had made a few stops along the way

God the greater than the governors

Blind, lame, sick

God the Great King

And like it’s been my entire life, I was more than done with this little adventure…as a kid I used to spend so much time just sitting in the van waiting for hours and hours for them to finish, so I was used to this

vs 31-33

Despised His name

Despised His name

However, I had Jaxton with me, a little 3 or 4 year old…and he was getting antsy.

Turns out, we were at this one little shop, and sure enough, they had a petting zoo behind the store

God the Father

God the Master

God the greater than the governors

God the Great King

I AM - Yahweh

What a fantastic idea! The women can shop and we can go do manly things like petting animals....I guess that’s a manly thing to do?

Drill into this name

Viewed worship and sacrifice as a weariness

Saw nothing wrong

“How have we despised your name”....etc.

They did not truly believe God…because faith is evidenced by our actions…and tells us without it is impossible to please God.

The Pattern Persists

So I head down behind there with Jaxton and we head over to where the animals are, a sheep, a donkey, a goat, etc.....

And this one sheep comes running over because usually they get fed by people who weren’t too cheap to stop and pay .25 cents to get some food out of the dispenser, which I didn’t do

The same still applies to us

- verse 10 & 12

Christ redeemed us from the sacrificial system

“Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin” - verse 18

He is our great high priest -

Christ truly “did away with the first in order to establish the second” as says

And immediately, I know something is wrong with what I’m looking at....because as the sheep approaches, I realize that it’s head was upside down

,

Because of that we are a holy priesthood under our great high priest

To offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ

Verse 9 - We are a chose race, a royal priesthood....and we are to proclaim the excellencies of Him.

And you’re probably thinking “yeah, right”, but I’m 100% serious here, the sheeps head was naturally upside down

Living sacrifice

Holy & acceptable to God…which is your spiritual worship

I didn’t even know what to do at this point as I’m just standing there looking at it.

Me, being an awesome parent, I forgot for a minute or two that my son was looking at the same animal and I wish I would have gotten a picture of his face because he was confused to say the least

I’m scratching my head wondering what would have happened if I did try to feed the animal, because how does this sheep eat upside down?

[Art Azurdia] What is authentic faith? The cultivation of an optimistic outlook on life with a kind of spirituality attached to it? A holy hoping for the best? Is this how you think of faith? Authentic faith is the confident assurance in events not yet seen Faith is not a call to believe in things when common sense tells you not to Faith is not a mindless stab in the dark It is not a crossing of the fingers and hoping for the best It is not a leap into apparent nothingness It's a word that speaks of reasoned, careful, deliberate, intentional thought Thought upon what? God and his promises If you are absolutely gripped by the coming realities that have been promised to you by God, then how you live your life in the present will be radically different than if you did not possess that certainty This is what faith is, my friends! Positive certainty expressed in action Authentic faith is not merely believing in God. It is believing God Taking God at his word, living in obedience to his revelation whatever the cost because you know down deep in your bones that God will always do what he says, that his speaking is his doing It is an abiding assurance in God and his promises that animates you to persevere in your obedience to Him Do you wish to be a more consistently obedient, steadily persevering Christian? A stronger Christian? A more courageous and outspoken Christian? Then you need to strengthen your faith! Your faith instinctively strengthens in direct proportion to the expansion of the object of your faith! You expand your understanding of the object of your faith and faith itself will obediently follow The object of your faith--if indeed you are a Christian--is Jesus Christ and all of his promises Is your faith weak? It is owing to the fact that you don't know the object of your faith well enough But when Jesus Christ becomes progressively bigger, or better yet, your understanding of who he is progressively conforms to reality, your faith will become increasingly stronger But how does that happen? By immersing yourself in the faith-arousing Word of God Read of Jesus Christ! The same powerful Word that long ago brought the universe to life is the same Word that can bring you to life and furnish you with a faith that is truly and authentically Christian

And I looked desperately to find pictures of these animals because we did take some, but neither my sisters nor myself could find any of them…but it was the strangest thing I have ever done

And I actually took my student leadership team on a retreat last year and our last stop of the day was to visit these animals....just to find out they were no longer there. And I’ve never felt like a worse human being than when I was standing there petting these animals and being disappointed that they were normal!

Well, tonight we’re going to be looking at a passage that is centered around animals as well, in particular the animals that the priests were offering to God on behalf of the people…animals who were themselves not perfect....and what I want us to consider when we’re all said and done here is this thought:

Do I find the worship God to be wearisome, or a burden?

Because what we are going to see is that the people of Israel were guilty of that

- Read the Passage

Read the passage

What we just saw in the passage is that God has a very big problem with the priests (and the people of Israel)…and that’s probably the understatement of the year.

And the issue at hand is that they are showing a complete indifference and downright contempt for God and His commands....

and that’s being displayed and made very clear to us in this passage in 4 ways, and I want to look at those tonight with you all…and have each of us heart check ourselves to see if any of these are prevalent in our own lives.

1. They offered polluted offerings upon the altar

Your translation may say they offered “defiled food”

So here is what the priests, and why I say the people of Israel as well, were doing…the people of Israel were bringing the blind animals, the sick animals, the lame animals, the animals with the upside down heads maybe…they were bringing those animals to the priests for sacrifice

and the priests were then taking these animals and offering them as sacrifices and offerings for their sins toward God

Not only were the people sinning, but the priests were sinning too

Which means if you think about the flip side, that they were leaving their best animals, you know, the ones that would bring top dollar at the market, the ones that would make them better money or feed their family better…they were leaving those to themselves.

So the real issue is that the people obviously weren’t bringing their best before God,

Sure there also would have been some monetary gain in doing so as well.

But they were ultimately putting who before God? They were putting themselves.

They were guilty of coming before God with their sacrifices, a part of their worship, with their leftovers, the ones that wouldn’t hurt them to lose

And maybe we wouldn’t say this out loud, or maybe we would, but maybe we read this passage and think to ourselves, “What’s the big deal? Why does it matter what they were bringing as long as they were bringing something?”

And when we think that we tread dangerously close to the idea that God should be grateful to us we brought something!!!

In , you don’t have to turn there, but if you want to later on you can, in verses 17-33, we see God lay out very clearly before the people of Israel the standard required for offerings and sacrifices.

And God tells Moses, that the animals must be without blemish, that they can’t be blind or disabled or mutilated or anything like that. The animal must be pure.

See, this was what God ordained for the Israelites to do. This was part of their worship of God, to bring their best before Him.

We can even think back to Cain....God demands the best, and He is more than worthy of the best, isn’t He?

But again.... maybe we still are caught thinking “What’s the big deal?”…and obviously the people of Israel were.

Well, the answer to this big deal is for one reason and one reason alone, in verse 31-33 of :

“So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the LORD. 32 And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you, 33 who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD.”

Why is it such a big deal? Why was what the Israelites were doing such a problem? It’s not like those animals were good for anything else!

Because God said so.

Because He is the LORD.

Because His name is holy

Because He is Yahweh

Sometimes we want a bigger or better answer…a better reason, if you will, as to why we must do something right, or why we have to bring our best before God.

Sometimes we need a bit of convincing…a prove to me attitude that He is worthy.

The intersection where sacrifice and obedience to God connect is the center of worship

Well church…there is no bigger or better reason to do something than to come underneath and understand the awe and wonder and weight of the response of God when He says, “I am the LORD”

See, the Israelites were showing that they believed in God, but they weren’t believing God

and

I think we can and often are guilty of the same thing

We are fine believing in God, believing in God for salvation....as long as we don’t really have to believe God and do what He calls us to do…and that is to bring our best before God

But, the truth is the intersection where sacrifice and obedience to God connect is the center of worship

God even says to the people of Israel, if you offered this to your governor, would he accept it?

Church…are we more willing to worship and praise and glorify man than we are God?

Are we guilty of bringing our best before man, or even before ourselves, and leaving God the afters?

Only He is the LORD, and only His name is holy and worthy of the best

Which brings us to our second point

They despised His name

Back over to our passage in Malachi, God refers to Himself in a few ways....He refers to himself as:

Father and Master in verse 6

Master

LORD of hosts in verse 6

Points out that He is greater than any governor or ruler in verse 8

Down in verse 14 He calls Himself a Great King

And not only that…but as we read the passage, did you see how many times the word “name” was referenced?

Verse 6 - “says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, “How have we despised your name?”

Verse 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 offer to my name....For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts”

And then in verse 14 - “For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.”

Six times God references His name…do you see the connection even back with Leviticus....God’s name carries such weight

And there is such importance for us to understand what God’s name means

But let’s hone in on God referring to himself as “The Lord of Hosts”.

God makes it clear to the people of Israel right off the bat in this passage that they are talking to the one true God, because he is referring to Himself, as LORD, in all caps as it should be in your Bibles as well

Which tells us and told Israel that God was referring to Himself as Yahweh

The name Yahweh was the name that God gave to Himself when He was talking with Moses in

In verse 14 of , God is stated as saying, “I am who I am” and again Moses was to say, “I AM has sent me to you”

In verse 15, God calls himself LORD, in caps, which is translated Yahweh.

And if you trace the Hebrew, you find that Yahweh is connected to the Hebrew verb hayah (to be)…which God is saying when He says I AM.

And here’s what that means, when God calls himself “I AM”. Here’s what he was reminding the people of Israel, and reminding us of.....only God:

Never had a beginning

Never will end

He is absolute reality

He is independent of everything

Therefore, everything that is (people included) is totally dependent on God

That He is constant

That He is the standard and sets the standard

That God can do whatever, whenever, however He pleases and it will always be good and right and perfect and beautiful

And that ultimately God is the most important and most valuable reality and being in the universe

And we’d do well to stop and ponder the greatness of the list we just read

He is so incredibly worthy of our worship, and our praise, and our best, and His name is to be reverenced among His people.

That’s what God was reminding them in verse 6

That is God’s name and the people were guilty of forgetting that, and the people were guilty of showing contempt for His name…of despising that God by focusing on themselves

Basically…they were looking at this sacrificial system that God had set up and they were turning their noses up at it…or “snorting at it” as verse 13 told us.

they were despising the Great I AM…they were showing absolute contempt and arrogance towards Yahweh

And church, when that is the case....it will always lead to.....our 3rd point, which is:

They viewed worship and sacrifice as weariness

But logically, think through this with me, when we despise His name, we will not care enough to bring our best before Him…because we don’t view Him as worth it.....and we will ultimately view worship and sacrifice as a wearisome exercise.

Anyone ever been there before? If that is you…I think one of the greatest things you can do is look into this book…push through the weariness and see God in all His glory!

Verse 13 in this passage quotes the priests as saying…maybe in their heads, maybe under their breath, maybe in secret to each other, “What a weariness this is”

Meaning, they looked at God, they looked at His commands, they looked at their worship, and declared:

What a bore this is

What a chore this is

What a burden this is

Again.....Anyone ever been there?

The priests, and the people, as evidenced in their despising of His name and very tangibly visible by what they were bringing before God…had grown tired of sacrificing to God.

It was a nuisance

It was no longer a privilege and a picture of the mercy and grace of God to the priests and the people

This was no longer a priority…it was an afterthought

He was no longer worthy in their hearts and in their minds and in their actions

They were telling the Great I AM that He was not important enough to them.

And in turn their sacrifice and worship had become just religious activity

And church, there is nothing God really hates more than insincere, unmotivated, wearisome worship brought before Him.

And God actually says in verse 13, “Why would I accept that?”

And I think we need to ask ourselves very honestly…do I view my worship of God as a weariness. Is it a burden to me?

And if so, do I really think I’m fooling God and He accepts that from me?

I think God’s global church in some places is very dangerously close, or already to this point of despising worship....and so they turn worship into a religious exercise, where we have to trick ourselves into the idea that we are worshiping Him correctly:

A.W. Tozer says, “In my opinion, the great single need of the moment is that light-hearted superficial religionists be struck down with a vision of God high and lifted up, with His train filling the temple. The holy art of worship seems to have passed away like the Shekinah glory from the tabernacle. As a result, we are left to our own devices and forced to make up the lack of spontaneous worship by bringing in countless cheap and tawdry activities to hold the attention of the church people.”

We need to see God high and lifted up, worthy of our praise and worship

And now finally, and to me, the saddest truth from this passage in my opinion

The priest saw nothing wrong with it

Look at these verses with me:

Verse 6 - “How have we despised your name?”

Verse 7 - “How have we polluted you?”

Malachi is relaying this message from God to the priests and to the people

And picture it with me, as He’s talking about the despising of God’s name and the offerings of defiled and polluted nature

They respond, “What us? How so? That’s not true”

And instead of taking God at His Word and seeing the realities of their “worship” before God....they argue with Him and almost accuse God of falsehood

And it again points out to us that they did not truly believe God....that was evidenced in their actions and their attitude before Him

How about us? None of us like to be told what we are doing is unacceptable, do we?

What type of response do we have? And what type of response should we have?

The Pattern Persists

Now, I want to take a few minutes and relate this to us today, as His church, His people because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary

is a passage that refers to Christ when it says,

“ 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Christ was the final and ultimate sacrifice, and that is why we can sit in these pews each week as the redeemed people of God....with the privilege of coming before God ourselves in worship!

Church, anytime you read about the sacrificial system in Leviticus and Malachi, don’t ever miss the chance to gaze upon what Christ did for us as the perfect final sacrifice.

He did for us what the law could not…and as verse 18 of says, “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

Christ was the complete and final sacrifice for our sins and He did away with the first to establish the second.

So please don’t here me wrong tonight that in any way our salvation is rooted in what type of sacrifice we bring before God…that’s not what I’m saying…the law proved we are unable to do so.

But I want you to see that Christ operates now as our great high priest now as & 8 point out to us.

No longer are we reliant on Levitical priests to offer for us…He was the perfect final spotless sacrifice.

:1

And because of that, in , and also in verse 9, we, His redeemed people, are also referred to as a holy priesthood, did you know that?

Verse 5 - you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

And verse 9 - “ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

We are a holy priesthood with what purpose?

To offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ

And here is what I want us to see tonight....yes the sacrificial system of the Old Testament was done away with due to the new covenant brought about by the blood of Christ

But we are still called to bring sacrifices, in spiritual nature, before God as part of a holy priesthood in Christ.

And notice, there is still a standard expected of us

We are to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And we’ve already seen some of the standards and acceptable sacrifices God requires:

Our best

The glorifying of His name

Pure and truthful worship

Why?....

In order that the excellencies of God may be proclaimed

So that His name may be made great.

So that others will see that He is the great I AM, that He is Yahweh, that He is the Great King

And I want to challenge us, and I have been challenged myself this week to ask yourself this: Is it possible that my worship before God is just like that of the priests and the people in Malachi?

As I mentioned sacrifices we are to bring, for some of you, I’m sure your mind also went to , where it says in verses 1 & 2:

“ I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

There is so much here that we probably don’t have time to get into

But again we see, we are to present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice

One that is holy and acceptable to God, which is how we are to worship

And that by renewing our mind, by believing not just in God, but also in what He says and who He is, we will know what is good and acceptable and perfect and worthy to be brought before our God.

Closing

Well we looked at four ways tonight that the priest and the people of Israel were showing utter contempt and indifference toward God in their sacrificial system and worship

And church, I think all four can and do still apply to us today

Sure, we’re not hauling in our animals to church every week for sacrifice, thanks be to Christ, but we are bringing ourselves…and I think it’s worth asking ourselves and examining ourselves to see if we are guilty of the same thing

So here are four, there are more, but here are four questions from our text tonight to ask yourself as you worship Him:

1. When you come to church each week, ask yourself, “Am I bringing my best before God”

Now I’m not saying you need a shirt and tie and you need to be all dolled up.

I’m asking you this, when you come to worship God corporately, who are you thinking more about, Him…or you?

The Israelites were offering what they thought they could get by with, and nothing more, rooted in selfishness.

What about you?

When you sit in the pew and listen to the word of God, are you engaged, are you offering Him your full attention?

Pastor Dave talked about that last week

When we are singing praises to God, when your singing, when we sing words like Hallelujah, are you realizing that that word means “praise Yahweh”?

Are you actively worshiping?

Or are you thinking about how this music doesn’t suit your taste

Is this about you or Him?

When you get here are you more eager to talk about your week, your job, your kid’s sports team, than you are about God himself?

Church, I think we can do better, and I know I can do better

And in your daily spiritual lives, what are you bringing before God?

Are you giving Him 5 minutes of a devotion and the next 23 hours and 55 minutes are centered around you?

Are you spending time in prayer, talking to the One who created everything out of nothing because He cared enough for you to send Christ to make a way for you to have a relationship with Him?

Are you willing to talk about everything under the sun with your co-worker until church, or religion, or Christ is brought up and then you shut up tighter than a clam making a diamond?

Church, I think we can do better, and I know I can do better

What are you bringing before God in a spiritual act of worship?

Is He worthy?

2. Are you guilty of despising His name?

In verse 14 of Malachi chapter 1, God says “I am a great King, and my name will be feared among the nations.”

Does His name inspire reverence in your life?

Do you really believe that He is the I AM, or do you spend your days as if you are the great one?

Because at the root of despising something is to cherish something else

And if your days are spent revolving around you

If your time in church, in corporate worship is spent revolving around you

If your time in God’s Word, even, is spent revolving around you

You are guilty of despising His name

Church, the reason we worship is because God is the great I AM…we should be the last thing we think of.

Is all of this just a religious exercise to you? It’s worth evaluating......

3. Thirdly…do you find the thought of worshiping Him to be wearisome or burdensome?

Does corporate worship as the church body incite joy or despair?

Can you never wait to leave and get home and do what you want to do?

Individually, does the thought and the practice of opening God’s Word and hearing from Him bring joy to you?

Or like the priests, do you snort at it?

4. And finally…something I’ve been really challenged with this week as I’ve been preparing this....what are you gonna do about it?

Do you have changes you need to make in how you view God, in how you worship God, in how you interact with God?

If you’re like me at all, I’m sure there are

The question is, will you take what we saw tonight and do something about it, or like the priest will you say:

“That’s not me, I’ve not been doing anything wrong.”

I would like to challenge us tonight....to spend this week looking into this book, and seeing who God is

Go take a look at the names of God, and let your heart be overwhelmed with the greatness and the goodness of God, the great I am.

If you want your worship to grow, your faith must grow, and that happens by spending time in God’s Word.

And allow yourself to see daily God for who He is.

When you do that, when we see Him....as redeemed people, as a holy priesthood, we won’t be able to help but to bring Him our best.