FBC Morning Light – December 30, 2022

Well, a good Friday morning to you, and some of you have been following along in this Bible reading plan that we started two years ago, and today you can breathe a sigh of relief, or you can exclaim hallelujah, because today you will have finished the

Old Testament. You will read the book of Malachi, and the Old Testament readings will have been completed today, and you will have read through Psalms and Proverbs twice in the last year.

Well, I want to focus on a few of the verses in the book of Malachi, because this is a challenging passage of Scripture.

It can be, and it can confront us pretty harshly.

So I want us to notice some things, and let's ask ourselves, as we end this year and look forward to the new year, it may give us something to think about, some goals to work on, or some areas of growth where we need to focus in the coming year.

So in chapter 1, verses 6 and 7, and verses 12 and 13, all that we want to look at this morning has to do with our worship, but these in particular have to do with what we offer to the

Lord. So in verses 6 and 7, now remember Malachi the prophet is speaking to people in the

Old Covenant who are bringing literal, physical sacrifices to the

Lord. Meat offerings, animal sacrifices, bread, grain offerings, and so forth. So he says this, he says,

Because a son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am the father, where is my honor?

If I am a master, where is my reverence, says the Lord? And he's speaking to the priests who despise his name, but he says, they say, well how have we despised your name?

Verse 7, he says, because you offered defiled food on my altar. But they say, in what way have we defiled you?

By saying, and here's the key, here's the attitude in it all, by saying, the table of the

Lord is contemptible, it's contemptible, it is something to be despised, we're tired of this, we despise going through all of this process of offering these sacrifices.

Now you may say, well this doesn't have anything to do with us, we don't offer these kinds of sacrifices, and after all I'm not a priest.

Oh, wait a minute, are you a follower of Christ? Well remember, if you are, he has made us a kingdom of priests.

And no, we don't offer sacrifices on an altar, but we offer the sacrifice of ourself, we offer the sacrifice of our praise to the

Lord, we offer the sacrifice of our time and our energy and our worship, but what is our attitude in it all?

If we go to church on Sunday, for example, and we do so with a sense of drudgery or a grudging attitude, that I have to do this, that's the same attitude that these priests had in the

Old Testament, that the Lord confronts them with that, he confronts them with that. And in verses 12 and 13, again he speaks of profaning the table of the

Lord, he says, because the table of the Lord is defiled, they say, and its fruit, its food is contemptible.

They have this kind of an attitude toward the sacrifice, the offerings that they offer.

But he says, you also say, what a weariness, and you sneer at it, says the

Lord of hosts. You sneer at it, this is a weariness. Do you ever get to the point of being weary of the

Lord's day, of feeling like, I wish I could just sleep in, I wish I didn't have to get up and go to church,

I wish I didn't have to do this every week. That's the attitude that the Lord is condemning in these

Old Testament people of God. They were sneering at the

Lord's house, they were sneering at the Lord's worship. And then in chapter 3, verses 13 and 14, they say this, the

Lord confronts them, he says, your words have been harsh against me, says the Lord, yet you say, what have we spoken against you?

And he says, you have said, it is useless to serve God, and that serving of God has to do with worshiping

God, it is useless to worship God. What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, that we have walked as mourners before the

Lord of hosts? What profit is it in worshiping the Lord?

And here's the way this attitude can come out in the New Testament Christian. We can have a very utilitarian or economic outlook on our serving of the

Lord, our worshiping of the Lord. We can ask ourselves, what did I really get out of the time

I went to church today? What did I get out of it? If I don't go to church with an attitude that says,

I'm going to get something today, the Word of God is going to be open, and there's going to be something that the

Lord will share with me today through his Word. But if that's not the heart that I have in going to church,

I will often come away from God's house with this kind of an attitude that says, that was worthless,

I didn't get anything out of that. And we can also have a utilitarian attitude as well in our worship.

For example, if you have the prosperity gospel mindset regarding your giving to the

Lord in your tithes, your offerings, what you financially give to the local church, to the work of the

If you have a prosperity gospel mentality, your mentality says,

I'm giving X number of dollars, I should see at least that much in return, and I'm not seeing it.

In fact, my budget's really tight, and I'm kind of living paycheck to paycheck, and I would do a whole lot better off if I didn't have to put that money in the offering plate or in the offering box or whatever, however it is you give.

If that's your attitude, then you have this attitude that the Lord is condemning here.

Your words are harsh against the Lord. Your attitude is, this is useless, it's useless, there's no profit in serving the

Lord. There's great benefit and blessing and profit to your soul if you serve the

Lord with gladness, if you come before his presence with singing, if you have the right attitude in your heart in your giving to the

Lord, in your serving of him. I trust you do. I really do. I trust that those who are watching this on a regular basis, they hear these things and say, yeah, there have probably been times in my life when

I've been like that, but that's not the norm, and I trust that's the case for you today. Let's wrap up the

Old Testament thinking about what is our attitude when we go to the house of the Lord, when we worship our

God. Our Father and our God, I pray that we would consider these things today, and I pray that our worship of you would be glad -hearted, would be wholehearted, and we would rejoice in the privilege.

We pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. Have a wonderful rest of your day today, and I hope you have a good

New Year's Eve, however you celebrate that. I hope that you don't stay up till midnight bringing in the

New Year and then feel like you can't make it to church the next day. That's a little bit of a distorted priority,

I would think. Let's get the New Year off to a great start. Gather together with God's people in God's house on January 1st.