We must focus our hearts worshipfully upon God’s Will that we spiritually love one another, doing always the right thing to help people in need.
Pastor Dan Gardner’s sermon at the Cohocton Assembly of God Church was taken from the Book of Malachi, chapter 1, verses 6 through 14.
6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty. “It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name.
"But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’
7 “You place defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’
"By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible. 8 When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled 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.
9 “Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?"-says the LORD Almighty.
10 “Oh, that one 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 Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands. 11 My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the LORD Almighty.
12 “But you profane it by saying of the Lord’s table, ‘It is defiled,’ and of its food, ‘It is contemptible.’ 13 And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the LORD Almighty. "When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the LORD. 14 “Cursed is 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.
We no longer give to God with burnt offerings of sacrificial animals or grain as the Israelites did. Even then, however, the prophets repeatedly made clear that such material evidences of worship were meaningless without a Spirit-infused heart that attuned us to God’s Will, that softened our hearts to do the right thing for our fellows, Christian and non-Christian alike.
Malachi’s message is particularly apt for us today, because the United States is in much the same back-slidden condition as were the Israelites. Too many of us have forgotten the Author of our blessings, too many of us pridefully exalt our own intellects and look to the secular political state for our salvation.
Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, was written approximately 400 years before the coming of Jesus Christ. The prophet’s admonition to the Israelites came after their return from the Babylonian captivity and the rebuilding of the Temple and Jerusalem’s protective walls. The Israelites, regaining freedom and prosperity, once again had abandoned their obligations under the Mosaic covenant with God. They made temple worship into a perfunctory, insincere ritual. Even the priests demeaned their calling given by God to Levi at the time of the Exodus.
If we are to avoid a fate such as theirs under the Roman Empire in AD 70, we will have to repent and to open our hearts to God’s message through the Holy Spirit. That means doing our true best, focusing our hearts fully upon His Will for us.
28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29"The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28-31)
It means aligning our lives with the commandments of God. An improper and insincere sacrifice in Malachi’s time amounted to breaking, in spirit, the Mosaic law. Today our self-centered greed and go-with-the-flow worship of the atheistic, secular political state is an affront to God, who created the United States and gave us political liberty and prosperity.
A worthy offering to God must be made in spirit and in truth.
23"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23-24)
Back to summary...
