If you would, turn in your copy of the scriptures to Malachi. Malachi is another one of the minor prophets, but he's the last one, so it's easier to find him. If you can, find Matthew and then go back one book, and there you'll find Malachi. This morning we'll be in Malachi chapter 1. Malachi chapter 1, verses 1 through 14. Hear now God's word. the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi I have loved you says the Lord yet you say in what way have you loved us was not Esau Jacob's brother says the Lord yet Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated and laid waste his mountains and his heritage for the jackals of the wilderness. Even though Edom has said, we have been impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places. Thus says the Lord of hosts, they may build, but I will throw down. They shall be called the territory of wickedness and the people against whom the Lord will have indignation forever. Your eyes shall see and you shall say, the Lord is magnified beyond the border of Israel. A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my reverence, says the Lord of hosts, to you priests who despise my name? Yet you say, in what way have we despised your name? You offer defiled food on my altar, but say, in what way have we defiled you? by saying, the table of the Lord is contemptible. And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably, says the Lord of hosts? But now entreat God's favor that he may be gracious to us, while this is being done by your hands. Will he accept you favorably, says the Lord of hosts? Who is there even among you who would shut the doors so that you would not kindle the fire on my altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, nor will I accept an offering from your hands. For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, my name shall be great among the Gentiles. In every place, incense shall be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For not my name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. But you profane it in that you say the table of the Lord is defiled, and its fruit, its food, is contemptible. You also say, oh, what a weariness. And you sneer at it, says the Lord of Hosts. And you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick. Thus you bring an offering. Should I accept this from your hand, says the Lord? But cursed be the deceiver who has in his flock a male and takes a vow, but sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. For I am a great king, says the Lord of Hosts. And my name is to be feared among the nations. Let's pray and ask God's blessing on the preaching of his word. Our gracious and heavenly Father, we thank you for this day of worship. We thank you, Father, for your word. We thank you that it teaches us and instructs us, corrects us and reproves us. We thank you, Father, that you have given us your word to teach us what we are to believe and what we are to do. And we ask, Father, now that you would give us ears to hear, that you would make us hearers of your word and doers also. Bless the preaching of your word, we pray, for your name's sake. And in Jesus' name, we ask this, amen. Gratitude, excuse me, not gratitude, ingratitude, ingratitude is an ugly thing. Have you ever done something for someone and you don't even get a thank you out of it? That's ingratitude. Think of the parable of the unforgiving servant that Jesus tells. Do you remember the context to this? Jesus is talking about forgiveness and Peter says, how many times do we have to forgive? And Peter says, seven, as if that's a big number. And Jesus says, 70 times 7. And they're shocked. Why would you have to forgive your brother over and over and over like that? And then he tells a parable. He tells the story about this unforgiving servant. You remember this story. He owes much to his master. Billions of dollars, we might say in modern day terms. It's more than he could ever repay. And he goes before his master, he begs for forgiveness and his master forgives him. And he turns around, he walks out, he grabs a fellow servant and he says, pay me the $5 you owe me now. And the servant says, I can't. I can't repay you. Have mercy on me. And he throws him in prison, says, you must repay me. Now, that's ingratitude. He's been forgiven so much, and he won't even forgive his fellow servant a little. That's ingratitude. And ingratitude is an ugly thing. Well, this morning, we're beginning a series on Malachi, a short series. And we find the people of Israel being ungrateful. God has rescued them from the exile. They were cast out of the promised land, sent into the far reaches of the earth, and now he has brought them back, brought them back to the promised land, brought them back to the worship of himself in Jerusalem. And they complain, and they're upset. It hasn't turned out the way they expected. God cast out their fathers for breaking the covenant with him, the covenant that he made with them through Moses, But the children continue much as they did before. So the situation that Malachi is addressing here takes place shortly before the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. If you remember your Old Testament, you'll remember that Ezra and Nehemiah came to Jerusalem to reinstitute the sacrifices properly, to build up the temple, the worship of God, and the walls of Jerusalem. Well, Malachi is addressing a situation slightly before the arrival of Ezra and Nehemiah. So God sends his prophet to his people once again. And the people of Israel stand accused, accused before God of their ingratitude, which is displayed in their worship. So what will be looking at this morning? We'll be looking at the context of this case that's prosecuted. We'll be looking at the charges that are brought, the warning that the prosecutor gives, and then the sentence that is passed upon the people of Israel. In what way then is worship important? Or why is worship so important? Or why is it that the way we worship important? Why is it that the way we worship is important? And we see this first of all in verses 1 through 5. The way we worship is important because God is worthy of proper worship. We might say also here he's worthy of biblical worship, the worship that he has prescribed. He is worthy. How is God worthy? He's worthy of worship because he loves the unworthy. Israel is unworthy, and yet God has loved them. They forsook him on their wedding night. Do you remember that? He gave them the law, the Ten Commandments, and when Moses walks down the mountain, what does he find? They've gathered all the gold in the camp, and they've made a calf, and they're bowing down to it, calling it the Lord, and worshiping it. This is faithlessness. This was the pattern of the fathers, and the children are no better. And then in the promised land they went after false gods. And now God has brought them back to the promised land and they grumble and they complain and they bring the lame and the weak and the blemished. They are no better than their fathers. They are unworthy people and yet God has loved them. God is worthy of worship because His love is redemptive. He says, I have loved you It will be helpful to us if we explore a little bit of the context of the display of God's love for His people. So listen as I read from a few texts in scripture to build this case of God's love for His people. We're going to look first at what Paul says in Ephesians and Romans. This is from Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 11. Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, so he's talking to Gentiles, so we're going to get a glimpse of God's love for his people Israel in comparison with how he treated the Gentiles. Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ. alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." So what did Israel have? They had God's love. They had the covenants of promise. They had those things which pointed forward to Christ. This was God's love displayed upon Israel, and yet they treat him with contempt. Romans chapter 9, Paul says this, they are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. They had the promise that there would come one from among them who would destroy the evil one and free his people and bring salvation. Listen to what God said to Israel after he brought them out of Egypt right before going into the Promised Land. This is helping us get an idea of God's love for his people. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. God had shown his love to his people over and over and over. He was worthy of worship. Exodus chapter 4 and verse 22, he says this, He's speaking to Moses here. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. God had adopted Israel and made Israel his son. And I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me. This was the love that God had for his people, to redeem them from slavery, to deliver them by his mighty hand and make them his treasured possessions, unique in all the earth. No other nation had this blessing, this kind of love shown to them. God is worthy of worship because His love is unrelenting. He takes the time here in this case to lay out the context. He doesn't immediately accuse Israel. He brings the context before them first. He answers their objections. You may have noticed as I read that there's this back and forth. The Lord says, but you say. The Lord says, but you say. God is loving in his address to his people. He answers their objections. And he's telling them, he's reminding them of his love in order to shame them, in order to shame them. You might be tempted to read this text and think, but this isn't a loving God. He says that He hates Esau. We need to remember that both Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom are unworthy of God's love. See, the astonishing thing in this passage is not that God hates Esau. The astonishing thing in this passage is that God loves Jacob. Do you remember Jacob? Jacob was cunning and crafty. In fact, humanly speaking, he stole the birthright from his brother. God intended for Jacob to have it, but Jacob was not a nice person to be around, and yet God loved him. Israel over and over and over sinned against God, and yet God loved Israel. The astonishing thing here is that God loves Jacob. We also need to remember in answering this objection that God is not arbitrary. Just because we don't know why God has decided to love Jacob doesn't mean that God is arbitrary in his decision. God chose Jacob because God is a merciful God. The hatred that we might sometimes have in our hearts for God's sovereign choosing needs to be recognized for what it is. It is, in fact, a setting up of ourselves as judge over God. Who are we? to judge God and to say that he has chosen wrong. Why does God tell us then that he has set his love upon Jacob? Well, it's to strengthen our faith. It's to encourage us that God has set his love upon his people. So what about us? As we think about our worship and as we think about our God and the love that he has shown us, we must never tolerate ingratitude in our hearts. We must never tolerate that sense of, oh, I have to come to church again. Never tolerate that sense of ingratitude. Knowing that God has loved you, knowing that God is choosing his people and saving his, has chosen his people and is saving his people, must lead us to worship, must lead us to gratitude, lead us to bow down to our gracious God and praise him. So we've seen, first of all, that the way we worship is important because God is worthy of this proper worship. And now, secondly, in verses 6 through 10, we see that the way we worship is important because to worship God improperly is to abuse God, is to insult him. Improper worship or unbiblical worship or worshiping God other than he has commanded is unnatural. Notice the illustrations that God uses here. The father and the son relationship, the master and the slave relationship. It's normal for a father to receive affection from his son. It's normal for those in authority to receive honor and reverence from those under them. And yet God says that Israel isn't even giving that. Their worship is unnatural. I hope you noticed how striking it was what God said in verse 8. Give it to your governor. Try it. Try it with a human being and see how he responds. And yet this is what you offer to me? Improper worship is unnatural. Improper worship is also insulting. What are they bringing to God? The lame and the sick. Now, humanly speaking, we might be tempted to excuse this. They've just been in exile for 70 years. They've been out of the Promised Land and God has brought them back. Things are not very nice right now. Have you watched those movies about pioneering? You find a piece of land and you go there and you have to, you have to get it ready. You have to clear the land. It's hard work chopping down trees and plowing up a field and making your house. Well, Israel is coming back to a land that's been devastated by war and they have to rebuild it. What do you think their flocks consist of? It's a lot of weak and sick and lame flocks, sheep and goats. So what do they say? Well, God's gonna have to be happy with the best that I can do. And notice what God says. No, you have in your flock what you can bring to offer. What are they bringing to offer? The lame and the sick. It's insulting to God. They're reserving the best for themselves and taking the weak and the sick to God. What did God command them that they were to bring? A land without spot and without blemish. The best that they had to bring to their God. They offered to God what they wouldn't even give, what they would give to their slave, what they wouldn't give to their governor, but what they would give to a servant. What do you give to your servant who lives in your household? You give him whatever he needs to survive, to continue working for you. What are they bringing to God? the least that they have. Improper worship is also alienating. There's a certain amount of irony here in this verse, in verse 10. The people are in sin. Think about this. The people are in sin. The priests are in sin. The people are supposed to be bringing right sacrifices, but they're not. The priests are supposed to see this bad sacrifice and say, no, you can't offer that. But they're receiving the sacrifice, and they're offering it anyways. Excuse me, verse 9. Look at verse 9. And what does the prophet say? But now, entreat God's favor that he may be gracious to us. How are they going to entreat God's favor? They're worshiping sinfully. Will he accept them? No, he will not accept them. So who will intercede? That is the question that's raised for us in verse 9. And look what God says in verse 10. I wish there was someone among you who would just shut the door. and close off the temple from the sacrifices. Who will intercede for the people? It's hard work sacrificing. Think about what these people are doing. They're bringing a lamb. They're bringing a goat. They're bringing doves. They're bringing this animal. They're sacrificing it on the altar. The priests are busy with the morning sacrifice and the evening sacrifice. They may have a festival where they're busy all day long butchering these animals and offering them up as sacrifices on the altar. This is hard work. It's vanity. It's empty. It's vain worship because it's improper worship. And now there's no one to intercede for the people. Who is supposed to intercede for them? It was supposed to be the priests. The priests were supposed to stand between the people and God and intercede for them. And the priests are sinning just as bad as the people are. Their labor is in vain. You might be tempted to think at this point, but doesn't God say that he doesn't really care about sacrifices? We just read that in Hosea, right? And David says that in Psalm 51, you wouldn't care about sacrifices or else I would offer it. You have to understand that there's two different things going on here. Yes, God doesn't care about sacrifices. In what sense? The external forms do not make God happy with us. So what's going on in those other passages? They're tempted to think that just by rendering the sacrifices that God has prescribed, God will be pleased with us. And God is saying, no, it's more than that. It's also the issues of the heart. But what's going on here? Here, they aren't even following the external command. They're not offering the pure and the blameless, excuse me, with the ones without blemish. They're offering the sick and the weak. It shows us something about these Israelites, and it should teach us something about our hearts. It shows that they don't care. The way they handle the externals shows that they don't care about the spiritual realities. God cares about worship. Taking worship seriously means being concerned with it because God is concerned with it. God is worthy. Our improper worship is insulting to him. And these are two of the reasons that we've looked at so far for why we should think about the way we worship. In verses 11 through 13, then we see our third point. The way we worship is important because God will establish proper worship. He will establish biblical worship. God will establish right worship outside of Israel. This should be a strange and shocking thing to read here. Look at verse 11 again. For from the rising of the sun even to its going down, my name shall be great. And look at the end of verse 11. For my name shall be great among the nations. This is what we call bracketing or bookends. It means that he's repeating something on both ends and that what's in the middle is really important that you need to pay attention to it. See, the Israelites would have come across this burden, this judgment upon them, or this verse, and they would have said, oh yeah, that's familiar. My name is great. See, Psalm 95 and verse 3 says, for the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods. Psalm 96 in verse 4 says, For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. And so they come to verse 11 and they hear, For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles. They've heard it over and over and over. And they've gotten used to it. They've gotten familiar with it. It no longer strikes them that God is great. They're in danger of ignoring this. And so the prophet highlights something. He highlights what's here in the middle. It's centered for us. In every place incense shall be offered to my name. The use of the incense shows us that this is something more, that this is something that's different that's going on. Because you don't offer incense. You don't sacrifice incense. There's no blood. You don't put it on the altar. That's for the lambs and the goats. You burn the incense in the temple. You burn it in the tabernacle. We don't sacrifice it. What is he talking about? He's talking about something beyond the Mosaic regulations for sacrifices. So could it be that he's talking about universalism here? that the offerings of the Gentiles at this time around the world were received by God as sincere offerings. Well, elsewhere in the scriptures, God says, no. God doesn't receive the offerings of the Gentiles. Those are offerings given to false gods. And how could it be that God would accept the offerings given to false gods when he won't even accept the offering given by the Israelites? So it's not that. And it's not that there's Jews throughout the world gathering in synagogues to worship God in this time. And it's not merely something future that God will spread Judaism throughout the world. There's something else going on, something more. This is what we call a type, something that points forward to something more important, something greater. This is Malachi teaching them about what God will accomplish. This is the prophet looking forward to the New Covenant age, when the worship of God will be characterized by what is spiritual. This is a promise to Israel and a warning to Israel. Do you remember when John the Baptist was baptizing in the Jordan and the Pharisees came and John said, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? John was there telling the Israelites that they were cut off. And that's what Malachi is warning them about here. You are in danger of being cut off, God raising up a people for himself from among the nations. This is your warning in your improper and your false worship. But it's also a promise. If they will continue to trust in the promised one, to what the sacrifices pointed, then they will continue to have God's love. God is not satisfied with worship that is not of faith. Rather than pure worship, they offered tainted worship. Rather than coming in faith, trusting in the one to whom the sacrifice is pointed, They offered the least. God is so holy. God is so majestic that they should never have come to the sacrifices without faith and repentance. They should have known that. What is this faith then? It's not wishing. It's not merely hoping. It's trusting that our worship is accepted by God, not because of what we are doing, but because of what Jesus has done. They were to look forward to the one who perfectly mediates, who perfectly intercedes, and we look back to him. We are to look back to what he accomplished in our worship. We must never then come to worship without reverence and without faith. So the way we worship is important because God is worthy. The way we worship is important because improper worship is insulting. The way we worship is important because God will establish proper worship. And then finally, in verse 14, we see God bringing a curse. The way we worship is important because God will judge improper worship. Verse 14, but cursed be the deceiver. We run over that with our eyes a little bit lightly and don't perceive the seriousness of it. Cursed. Cut off. alienated from God and His people, cursed, treated like the Gentiles, treated like the Canaanites were to be treated, wiped off the face of the earth, cursed be the deceiver. God's judgment upon those who offer improper worship. This is God's intolerance of false worship. Why? Because He is so great. He is always, all times and all places. He is beyond time. He is beyond us. His glory is indescribable. He is worthy of our best in our worship. In conclusion then, we have seen that worship is important because God is great. Because He is great, He is worthy of proper worship. And improper worship, worship that's not of faith, worship that's not resting in Christ, is a great insult. God will be worshiped. And He will raise up for Himself a people who will worship Him. And He will judge false worship. Because Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice, Your worship, the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving that you offer, is accepted by God. Because Jesus offered himself, your worship is acceptable. So what then should you do? Don't tolerate discontent in your heart over the simplicity of worship. The Jews had trumpets and fanfare and great processions and the slaughtering of thousands of bulls and rams. It was great and visible and wondrous. We have four walls and a man getting up to speak and preach on what he studied the past week. We sing hymns and we pray. It's simple. It's strange. It's kind of weird. Don't be discontent with the worship of God. Don't be discontent with its simplicity. Also, because Christ died for you to make your worship acceptable, look forward to worship on Sunday. Look forward to the gathering together of God's people to worship Him. Look forward to it with anticipation and eagerness. Stir it up in your heart. We think of anticipation and eagerness, and we often associate it with Christmas, with children being eager and anticipating the giving of gifts. Be eager for the worship of God on Sunday, that you gather together with his people into his presence to offer the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving from your hearts, trusting in Jesus Christ. Look forward to it. Stir that up in your heart. And then this is somewhat preaching to the choir because you're all here. Come to the worship of God on Sunday. Be with his people. Do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together. As much as lies with you, as much as you are able, be here. Be with God's people worshiping him. Come to the worship of our great God, our glorious God. Come to worship Him in faith, trusting in Jesus Christ. If you're coming here or any other church to worship and you're not trusting in Christ, you're offering improper worship. And God has only ever been kind to you. God has only ever shown you love and giving you life and giving you being. And if you're not trusting in Christ, how are you repaying him? Even your attempts at worship are insulting to him. Insulting to his majesty, his beauty and his perfection. Only in Christ Jesus can your worship be acceptable to God. Come to Him. Trust in Him. Rely upon Jesus Christ alone for the well-being of your soul. And the Scriptures say that if you will trust in Jesus Christ, turning from your sin and resting in Him by faith, you will be saved. God is not content to merely instruct His people. God accomplishes Himself what He commands. He sends His own Son to not only offer a perfect sacrifice, but to be that perfect sacrifice. It is Christ Jesus who is accepted favorably. It is Christ whose labor is not in vain. It is Christ Jesus who is pleasing to the Father. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we bow before you now, and we thank you for your Son. Father, we are often played with distracting thoughts. We are often tempted to dwell on the things of the past week and the week to come. Father, we often sin against you, even on Sunday. Father, our worship is a pale and pitiful thing. And we would confess before you that we never worship a right. And yet, Father, we find that there is a way for us to come before you without fear of death. And that is through Jesus Christ, your only son. Coming in his righteousness, in his perfection, coming before you, rejoicing in him, trusting in him, delighting in him. And this is proper worship. You would have us to come before you and into your presence as you have commanded, hearing the preaching of your word, praying to you, come before you with singing in our hearts And Father, this worship then we find is accepted in Christ Jesus because we are accepted in him, clothed in his righteousness, clothed in his perfect keeping of your law, our sins paid for by his death on the cross. Thank you for this glorious truth. Give us hearts that delight in your worship. Give us hearts that delight to pray and to hear the preaching of your word. to think on our baptism, to see others baptized, to delight in the partaking of the Lord's Supper. Give us hearts, Father, to delight in true and sound worship. Strengthen our delight in you, we ask. In Jesus' name, amen.