Grace for Acceptable Worship

Mr. Keith Peters’ sermon on Malachi 1:6-14 addresses the serious decline of worship and the failure of the priesthood in post-exilic Israel. Mr. Peters begins by establishing that everyone is engaged in an "awe battle"—a struggle for the deepest affections of the heart, where various desires and dreams compete with God for ultimate priority. He then focuses on the situation in Malachi's time, where the worship being offered by the priests and the people had become "despicable and odious to the Lord." The central conflict is Israel's complacency and lack of reverence, questioning God's love and authority despite His covenant relationship with them.

The sermon specifically highlights the unacceptable nature of the priests’ offerings, which were marred by indifference and cheapness. Mr. Peters details how the priests were presenting blind, lame, and diseased animals for sacrifice, openly violating God's command to offer only the best. This practice showed their profound disrespect for God's holiness and His rightful position as a "great King." The priests essentially revealed their true estimation of God by offering Him what they themselves deemed worthless. Mr. Peters drives home the point that this cheapened worship not only insulted God but also reflected a deep spiritual problem of the heart.

Mr. Peters then pivots from the historical failure of Israel's worship to the perfect fulfillment of worship in Jesus Christ. He explains that while the people in Malachi's day offered their worst—their "diseased, broken offering"—God provided His best: His only begotten Son. Jesus’s perfect sacrifice on the cross acts as the great substitution, dealing with our sin and enabling us to approach God. Mr. Peters concludes by emphasizing that the only pure and acceptable worship we can now bring to God is through Christ's righteousness imputed to us by grace. He identifies this grace as the ultimate reason for giving thanks, positioning Jesus as the great King of Malachi 1:14 and the foundation of all true spiritual devotion.