Malachi

Malachi chapter 1 beginning at verse 6.

As Simon honors is father and a slave, his master If I'm a father, where is the honor due to me? If I'm a master, where is the respect due to me says the lord in Maisoo? It is you priests who show contempt for my name. But you ask, how have we shown contempt for your name? By offering defiled food on my altar, but you ask, how have we defiled you?

By saying that the lord's table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals to sacrifice, is that wrong? Is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor.

Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you says the lord almighty? Now plead with god to be gracious to us with such offerings from your hands, will he accept you says the lord almighty? Oh that 1 of you would shut the temple door so that you would not like use as fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you says the lord almighty and I will accept no offering from your hands.

My name will be great among the nations from every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me because my name will be great among the nations says the lord or Maiseu. But do you profane it by saying the lord's table is defiled and its food is contemptible? And you say What a burden? And you sniff at it contemptuously, says the lord almighty. When you bring injured lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hand, says the lord?

Curst as the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the lord. For I am a great king says the lord almighty. And my name is to be feared among the nations. Thanks, Louise. If you've got the Bible keep that passage open, let me add my welcome to you.

It's lovely to see you here. Particularly a couple of special special welcomes actually. We've got some old friends daisy, and Nathan are here. I guess you're visiting the funeral minimum, are you? You know, your choice.

And, Mike at the back there. Mike had surgery. We've been praying for Mike, and he had cert facial surgery on Thursday, and he's in church on Sunday. I mean, that's pretty amazing, isn't it? And I was expecting something a lot worse than that.

Love it's your normal face. So, but it's great to have you back. Let's, pray, as we then turn to god's word. Father god, we thank you for your word. Help us to focus on it now, put aside things that have been going on, in our heads this morning, help us to hear from you, that we might be, moved by your word and changed by it this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen. Can you, can you ever think really of an opportunity or or a situation where being half hearted is a good thing? I've been thinking about this for the last couple of weeks, actually, and I certainly in my case, I've seen a lot of half hearty performances by Full and Football Club. But even when we won, I don't think it was enjoyable. I would much rather, wouldn't you see it see, a wholehearted performance and lose than people who can't be bothered?

And in life, generally, you know, whether you're going to a party or you're going out for dinner with friends, and you're feeling tired and you'd rather stay in, you know, or perhaps you're going to a conference for work or some other event you don't really want to go to. I don't think any of it is actually improved by being half hearted. Even when you're not looking forward to something, is it? Now it's it's true that on occasions we can get away with being half hearted, either because nobody notices, you know, or what you're doing isn't crucial to the event. Or somebody else carries the conversation or the workload in the meeting, but getting away with something isn't the same as having the right approach to it.

Both our kids, I can remember, got very frustrated at university, Some of you got this coming, where they're putting little work groups for a task. And then 2 of the people don't turn up to any of the meetings, don't get involved, don't bother. They just get carried along by the others. We know, don't we, the being half hearted, perhaps in things like our marriages, or as a parent, is not a good thing and doesn't usually lead to good results. And we're gonna see here this morning that neither is it a good thing in terms of our relationship with God.

Another way of thinking about this is who gets the best of you? Who gets the best of you? If you go to work and you're really focused on the on what you're doing, you're doing a good job. You're helpful. You're dedicated.

You're lively on the team's calls that are going on. You you're enjoying being with people at lunchtime or or at drinks after work. But when you come home, you're indifferent and tired and you just wanna watch TV or in my case, you go to sleep watching TV on the sofa. Is your spouse getting the best of you? And isn't it the same as a parent?

The kids get the attention and the love and the input and the energy and your spouse gets well whatever you have left. We all know that's not how it should be. Yeah. It's easy, isn't it? To find ourselves drifting into that sort of behavior?

There was a cartoon, on X. I think it was week before last, I I noticed it, and I I actually quite liked it. It was a man standing in a factory. And, his boss came over to him and says, you know, why aren't you working? And he replied, well, I didn't see you coming.

But we're so like that, aren't we? But the really convicting question I think for all of us, when we think about this subject is where does god fit in your life? When does he ever get the best? When are we not half hearted towards him? So I wonder if it's only when things feel out of control, you know, when something's going wrong in our life.

In other words, when we need him is really the only time he gets our attention. Now if you were here last week, you'll be aware that Malachi, which is the last book of the Old Testament, is a prophet, god is speaking through him, and the people are questioning what god is saying in a sort of whole series of back and forth, you know, responses to what god says. And the first 1 last week was where god said, I have loved you. And the people said, how? How have you loved us?

Prove it? Basically, was their attitude? And again, this morning, the people respond quite strongly to what god has to say. Verse 6, god opens up with this, a son honors his father and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due to me?

If I am a master, where is the respect due to me, says the lord almighty? It is you priests who show contempt for my name. But look at the response of the the the priests, the people. But you ask, how have we shown contempt for your name? How?

Now, in this case, it looks like god's addressing the priests specifically, but he he's actually dealing with an underlying attitude here an underlying spiritual demise that is affecting the whole nation and the priests who are the head of the nation, the head of the people, the head of the temple, are firstly reflecting the attitude themselves. But they're failing to lead everyone out of it. So our first thing I wanted to think about this morning is this, what are the underlying causes of this spiritual demise of this halfhearted worship? A son honors his father and a slave is master. If I'm a father where is the honor due to me?

If I'm a master where is the respect due to me says the lord almighty. See, these verses unpack for us 1 underlying reason that our worship of god may be half hearted or casual. And I think it might be more of a problem today, actually, than in the last say hundred years. Because of our changing view of the fatherhood of god or fatherhood, sorry, in general. See, in our current culture, there's a there's 2 things going on.

It's a combination really of men no longer having a clear role, and the idolization of children, meaning that the idea of honoring your father has been turned around so completely that we rarely We rarely end up discussing the behavior of children towards their fathers. Instead, we end up analyzing whether the father has really acted in a way that's worthy of his children's honor. In fact, more than that I think, we assume now that they won't have behaved in a way that deserves their children's honor nor actually the respect of their wife. And that sort of culture, well, anything cultural really, can creep into the church. Because it's more acceptable, we end up over emphasizing 1 idea.

Let's take, I mean, the idea of you know, god being loving to the exclusion of other characteristics of god. If we were to ask Christians today, what's your idea of the fatherhood of god? The response might be something like this, well, god, my father, loves me. He takes care of me. He guides me, forgives me, and he will take me to be with him forever in heaven.

Now there's nothing untrue about that. Is there? The answer isn't wrong. God, the father will do all of those things. He does love us.

He will hold us in the palm of his hand. We are heirs to his kingdom. We are adopted into his family, and those are amazing truths. Yet in its truthfulness, the answer misses out quite a lot. Malakai makes it quite clear that the fatherhood of god means that god is to be honored, revered, feared, and held in respect because he's an awesome god.

And I wonder whether the the denigration of fathers in our culture means we've lost sight of this. You know, the less emphasis there is is what I'm saying on the need for children to respect their earthly fathers means the less god's fatherhood is a concept that will trigger in us reverence and honor. I heard a pastor tell a story Once of he he was at lunch, with his grown up kids, for his family, and his mother and father, grandparents. And they were enjoying lunch, and it was a lot of banter, and as always, there's some of it was at his expense. You know, dad can't do this.

He's not up to date technology is always late or, you know, whatever it was that they were talking about. And at 1.1 of the kids said to their granddad, were things different when dad was our age? And quick as a flash, the granddad said, Oh, yes, I I would have never let your father speak to me the way you've just spoken to him. Now, the pastor I think was quite taken aback by a comet, because he he'd enjoyed the banter. But the granddad, I think, is just saying there's an element of disrespect and mocking there that actually isn't helpful.

So in treating fathers too casually, We may very well end up worshiping god the father too casually. But Malachi goes on in verse 6, it is you priests who show contempt for my name. See, the other thing that they're failing to do and it's and the priests here are guilty of this, is they're not seeing the greatness of god. Instead, they're dismissive. They're almost bored with him.

It's the old saying familiarity breeds contempt. They're showing contempt for god in their attitude to his name, and yet they don't see it. And they come back at guard. It's the it's the back and forth again, but you ask, how have we shown contempt for your name? See, what are you talking about guard they're saying?

We're here every day, say the priests. It's our job to worship you and call the people to worship you and call the people to bring sacrifices which we then carry out How can you say after all that we do you're showing contempt for my name? And that's the second point. What does halfhearted worship look like? Well, it's first 7.

By offering defiled food on my altar, but you asked how have we defiled you. See, that's another back and forth. How? By saying that the lord's table is contemptible, when you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong, try offering them to your governor.

Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you? Says the lord god almighty? People have lost sight of an almighty god and the priests have allowed or promoted to casual an attitude to creep in. Effectively a certain latitude is being allowed in their worship of god.

So let let me give you a scenario. Perhaps the people bring an unblemished lamb, which is what they should do, to offer as a sacrifice. And the priest would in effect say to each other, it doesn't make sense. To slaughter a perfectly good lamb. It's only gonna be burnt at the altar.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna sell this unblemished lamb for a good price and we're gonna slaughter or sacrifice a blemished 1. And you know, don't you? You know how they justify it. Well, that's the best stewardship of god's money. It's the right thing to do.

Well, what about this? This is an alternative. The people bring a less than perfect animal. To the temple to be sacrificed, and the priests reassure them. Yes.

Don't worry about it. It's just going up in smoke anyway. You see sacrificing like this. It helps you get rid of an animal you can't do much with. And it helps us keep the fires burning at the altar.

Remember, the priests and their families lived off the meats that were sacrificed to grain offerings and so on, so it wasn't in their interest to raise the bar too high so that people couldn't bring anything. This way, everyone's a winner. Except God. But you see, don't you how the practical can override the spiritual? The people are saying surely it's better to burn the damaged animals and save the good ones.

The lord understands. He knows what the economic situation is. Better for us to offer blemished animals than none at all. See how the thinking goes? The problem is it's a massive deal.

Whenever we look at the old testament, we have to remind ourselves. I I have to remind myself actually regularly. That Jesus dying on a cross is not plan b. It's not because Israel's so useless that god gives up. And then he says, what am I gonna do now?

I know. Let's try Jesus. The whole of scripture points to the need for Jesus' a saviour and that includes the sacrificial system. The priests were to sacrifice the unblemished animal as a direct obvious picture of the lamb of god that would come in the form of the sinless savior Jesus. He would be sacrificed for us on a cross.

So what they were doing in Malachi's day of sacrificing the lame and the blemished animal completely removes that visual aid if you like. No longer was it about giving your best? It had become about religious practice, it had become about going through the motions. And how do we apply that to us? Well, I think it's the equivalent of convenience Christianity.

Life's difficult. We have we have demanding jobs. Some of us are really, you know, no better than modern slaves working long hours. We have children and families. They need time.

Don't forget we have to be allowed sometime for our hobbies and me time just to keep us going. Sound familiar? Is that how you think? You see, it's a short step from that to rationalize aspects of our lives. Surely, we don't need to do more than this for god.

That'll be enough. He understands how busy life is. It's better than nothing. And if somebody demands more of us than that, then our attitude is, well, it is too difficult. You know, there's a point at which Christianity becomes less convenient, and that's not what we want in our lives at the moment, is it?

Timalachi points out they're offering to god what they wouldn't offer to their governor, what they wouldn't offer to the worldly authorities. And if they did, those authorities wouldn't accept it. So just ask yourself this morning. Do you offer more of you, more of a wholehearted approach to your employer or to your gym class or to your children's schoolwork than you do to the living god. Fundamentally, we've forgotten just like the priests here that the sacrifices were given to please the lord.

And when we're part of a church community like this, we too should be looking to please the lord in everything we do, not doing the bare minimum that fits in with our lives. The great motivation for offering sacrifices it says in leviticus is that they would result in an aroma pleasing to god. So as we sit here this morning, do we believe that our worship or our lives do that right now? Remember in the case of our faith and our worship, it's not the thought that counts. When I was thinking about this, I thought, well, you know, let's be honest, thank goodness.

Thank goodness, that we aren't required any longer as the people of god to burn dead animals on an altar. I mean, I can tell you Tiffin are not gonna run with us having rivers of blood and flames up here. But instead, you see, and we're not let off the hook in that sense. Instead, we're to bring living sacrifices in the form of ourselves to be fully devoted disciples of Christ. And so we're to use what gifts and resources we have and give our best to serve Jesus.

So our attitude shouldn't be does this church do things to my taste? But when we come here, it should be was gone was god honored here today? That's how we should think. So let's take a typical Sunday morning. See, maybe you need to think about how often you end up in the overflow because of when you arrive or reflect, for example, how often are you out of the door back in your car before the first coffee's poured?

My daughter who's here this morning, when she went to Nottingham at university, we we went up, Matthew and I went up, and we went to a church service with her, a church she was trying. And I reckon it was about this size. I reckon a hundred, a hundred and 50 people were out of the door before that first coffee was poured and off dealing with the rest of their lives. And we stood there and nobody spoke to us. That's not giving our best.

Shouldn't even go to that church, by the way. But but that's not giving our best, is it? If that's our attitude is, okay, service done off. How often when we announce a church feast like Tom did this morning? And we get here next week, and everyone says always the feast today, and you had no idea.

Because actually, you have no intention of coming to anything like that. So in other words, is our attitude well at least I went? Rather than I'm gonna give God my best. Prees in Malachi's day had little use for blind, lame sick animals, so they gave them to god at the altar. Giving to god, what actually you don't need is not giving at all.

Your gift, whether it's time, money, fellowship, love, how you give those things reveals your estimate of the 1 to whom you give it. We don't have a priesthood today. But if the church leadership, the preachers, if the elders say nothing, if your home group leader says nothing, if we don't pull you up, on stuff, then we're doing the same as the pre summary. We're just saying that's okay. Don't worry about it.

It's only god. The problem though with casual worship is doesn't satisfy god, and it doesn't satisfy us. Look at our third point, halfhearted worship is unacceptable to god and unsatisfying for us verse 10, Oh, that 1 of you would shut the temple doors so that you would not light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you, says the lord or mighty, and I will accept no offering from your hands. So you see straight away, a sort of superficial halfhearted worship is not acceptable to a sovereign almighty god.

And why should it be? You see, whilst the people and the priests were saying this is good enough, god will understand God has a totally different attitude and says I'll shut it down. We see the same thing actually in Revelation 3, really, if we got Revelation 3, can't remember if we have a knot. Yeah, great. Revelation 3, letter to the laodicean church.

Look at this. I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either 1 or the other. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth. See, that verse and the verse in Malachy is quite scary because perhaps it hasn't occurred to us.

That if we're half hearted towards god, he may not accept our worship. So look at Cornerstone right now. Numbers are high. Great children's work. Growing numbers in youth.

Very high percentage of people by church standards in small groups. We'd be shocked, wouldn't we? God said, yeah, but you don't love me. So I'm closing it down. But that's the point when you're in this state, you can't often see it.

That's why Israel is coming back at God. How have we done that? We haven't done that? They can't see it, can they? But also halfhearted worship isn't satisfying for us either.

And we know that, don't we? It comes back to what we say right at the beginning. When something isn't satisfying, in the end, we just stop doing it. Malakai chapter 1 verse 12, but you profane it by saying the lord's table is defiled. Its food is contemptible and you say, what a burden?

And you sniff at it contemptuously, says the lord almighty. So do you see there what's happened to the hearts of the people? The whole exercise of worship is a burden now. It's become hard work, it's tiring, and they're suffering from sort of spiritual boredom Isn't that true? Halfheartedness about anything in the end causes us not to bother with it.

We're too tired, we say it's too much this week, I can't get my head around sorting the kids out and eating and getting out of the house in time. I need a break. We're at a difficult stage in life at the moment. You know, whatever it is, that's how we start thinking. And gradually it drifts.

When I was preparing this, I I found a whole list of examples which I'm gonna use because they're not mine, so you can all not get cross with me, which is great. And his list of examples is somebody's observations are in church. And so let's hear them. Let's think about them. Let's think about whether we're falling into this trap.

And it's a sample, they're samples really of how we can fade, how we cannot give god our best. So you're on a rotor, but when you're on is really the only time you come. It's the first 1. Second, when you're on a rotor, but you constantly seem to be looking to swap all the time because you aren't now at church that day. Now, I've got to come clean here and Fin's already pointing at me.

This was very annoying. So I've written this, and it doesn't say that, actually. What- the original version was, you are on a road of it. You constantly seem to be looking to swap all the time full stop. The problem was on Thursday, I got this email saying, don't forget you're in creche on Sunday morning, and I thought, oh, for goodness sake.

Double booked. So I look, I got onto the creche box that group, I only need to find that the previous person who'd been on it was me saying can anyone swap. So I thought that's ridiculously irritating. So I thought I'll know what I'll do. I'll reword the point So it doesn't apply to me, so I'm fine, and only applies to you people.

So, so I came up with because you aren't now at church that day, which doesn't include me, so it's all good. Okay. That was that 1. We'll move on. You lead a small group, but you wing it more often than you used to, and your preparation has dropped off.

When a request comes up on WhatsApp, you wait to see if someone else will offer first. You find the singing on Sunday dull, and you're mentally treading water waiting for the talk. You find yourself critiquing the sermon and the speaker more than applying it to yourself. Now, obviously, if you're doing that today, if you just put 5 stars in your head for the review, I I'm good with that, you can carry on. But that is a problem.

You haven't reviewed your giving for a number of years and in no way could it be described as the first fruits of your earnings anymore. When you pray and read the Bible, you no longer do it when you know you're fresh, but when you can fit it in in the day if that you know, if you can at all. Interesting list, not exhaustive, but when you hear that sort of list, does it feel like, this is a burden now? Where am I with god has the joy gone? See if so, we have to ask ourselves, and we all have to ask ourselves anyway, what is the antidote to this?

Otherwise, all that happens is you leave here feeling depressed or guilt ridden, And so that's our fourth point. God gave his best when we didn't deserve it. See, the key to this whole passage is the middle verses versus 10 and 11. Over that 1 of you would shut the temple door so that you would not light useless fires on my altar, I am not pleased with you says the lord almighty, and I will accept no offering from your hands. My name will be great among the nations from where the sun rises to where it sets.

In every place, incense and pure offerings will be brought to me because my name will be great among the nations, says the lord. See, god is so fed up with these unacceptable, halfhearted offerings. He's saying I'd rather shut the temple doors then endure it any longer. But then verse 11, he says 1 day and it's coming soon, it will be shut because all people in every land all over the world from where the sun rises to where it sets will be making pure offerings to me. He's saying you see that there's a great transition coming.

A time when temple worship will be redundant. A time when somebody will shut the temple doors and bring the vain worship to an end. And that's clarified for us in the gospels. Look at we've got, I think, John chapter 4. Rory preached on this couple of weeks ago.

Woman Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you were worshiped the father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You samaritans worship what you do not know, we worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews, yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in the spirit and in truth for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks. God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. See, god gave his best. His only son Jesus.

He died for our sins as an unblemished sacrifice. And through faith in him, our consciences are purified from all the dead sort of works that we've been looking at. All the casual worship that we've been thinking about so that we can serve a living and true god. True worship he says and is right is no longer focused on a place. That's why we can meet here in a school.

It's no longer focused on a priesthood, but in the person of Jesus Christ in whom the love of God is fully demonstrated, if we are in Jesus, if you are in Jesus this morning, and he's in us. Then through the Holy Spirit, he will ignite in our hearts a flame of true worship to the glory and praise of god forever. Here is the antidote to spiritual boredom. Here is the cure for halfheartedness and it's the cross. Atonement has been made acceptance with god secured forever, not on the basis of some offering.

Not on the basis of something that we have to do, some act of service by us, or some attendants by us, or being on time by us, but on the basis of Jesus, offering himself once and forl as the lamb of god. So you see, perhaps this morning, we need to come back to the cross. We need to see the nails in his hands and in his feet. See the blood shed for us. Look at Jesus on that cross being crucified and see if you don't become wholehearted again.

See if the spiritual boredom and the casual attitude to god doesn't fall away as you dwell on his sacrifice. If we get that vision, if we see what Christ has done for us, then we'll be able to say wholeheartedly, whatever I have Jesus is yours. My time, my energy, my love, my money, my skills, my gifts. I want to love you more Jesus. I want to honor and respect my awesome, all powerful father god.

And if that's us this morning, and that's what we want, then yes, some of us might need to make some changes to our lives to reflect that. But as our passion for Jesus here at Cornerstone grows, Then let's pray will cause people to look at us to see god's glory, to see a wholehearted worship of the lord, to see a group of people committed to loving him and loving 1 another. Let's pray they'll be attracted to that so that they too will come here and get to know this wonderful saviour. Let's pray. Father god, forgive us when we're halfhearted, forgive us when we're casual, forgive us when we're, you know, basically just tagging Sunday on to our lives, help us to be wholehearted for you, help us to have a vision of the cross, help us to understand what your son Jesus did for us.

Help us to see that and respond to it in love. Law, we want to love Jesus more, help us to do that, help us to live lives that are, wholeheartedly for you, and, and, you know, even if we have little that we feel we can give in abilities or time or whatever, help us to give it. Or we praise, we pray rather that this church will be a beacon in this town that when people see us, they will see a people committed to you and committed to each other in love. In Jesus' name, amen.