If our hearts are not right, should we avoid worshiping God publicly?<\/p>\n
In Malachi\u2019s day, the priests and the people were going through the motions of worship, yet all the while despising His Name (Malachi 1:6), thinking, \u201cWhat a weariness this is!\u201d (Malachi 1:13). So God says:<\/p>\n
Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors [of the temple], that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 1:10-11)<\/p>\n
God is great. And He is working together all the events of history to culminate in the grand, eternal, joyful worship of His Name by all peoples.<\/p>\n
Worship today, in this age, is to foreshadow that final, glorious worship. But our perfunctory, going-through-the-motions worship does not do that. Instead, such obligatory worship degrades Him. Rather than the deserved honoring of the One who is holy, mighty, loving, and just, such worship makes Him look like some rich person who is not too bright, whom we need to fool and puff up so he\u2019ll grant us what we really want. For we don\u2019t want Him. <\/em>Why should we? We just want what He will give us.<\/p>\n So God proclaims through Malachi that He would rather we not worship at all. He would rather board up the temple and cease all sacrifices. Today He would rather close the churches, disperse the choirs, and cancel Sunday School. We must halt any so-called worship that in effect distorts and dishonors His Name.<\/p>\n That leads us back to the opening question. We might think that we should apply this passage to ourselves individually, in saying, \u201cI\u2019m angry with God. I\u2019m annoyed with Him. If I can\u2019t get my heart right in time, I should just stay away. That\u2019s what He would want. I shouldn\u2019t be a hypocrite.\u201d<\/p>\n But that is not what the passage implies. Indeed, the book of Malachi was written to change <\/em>the hearts of those engaged in perfunctory worship. He deserves <\/em>true, joyful worship \u2013 moving from perfunctory worship to no worship at all doesn\u2019t solve the problem.<\/p>\n Rather, after recognizing that our hearts are in the wrong place, we must ask Him to change us: to change us through His Spirit working directly on us, through His Word showing us who He is, and through the songs, Scriptures, prayers, and preaching of our worship. We must beseech Him to enable us to see His greatness, to encounter His love, to be overwhelmed by His grace and justice. We must beg of Him to lead our hearts to respond rightfully to His revelation of Himself.<\/p>\n And time and again God graciously grants such requests.<\/p>\n So having a hard heart is not a reason to avoid worship. Rather it is a reason to seek His face, a reason to beg Him to change your heart. May He use our worship services to that end among us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If our hearts are not right, should we avoid worshiping God publicly? In Malachi\u2019s day, the priests and the people were going through the motions of worship, yet all the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15],"tags":[142,166,290,398,399,695,858,965,1047,1094,1144,1145,1416,1680,1684],"class_list":["post-1974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-devotions","tag-angry-with-god","tag-attend-worship","tag-christian-hedonism","tag-despised-the-word-of-the-lord","tag-despsing-gods-name","tag-hard-heart","tag-joy-in-god","tag-malachi","tag-my-name-will-be-great-among-the-nations","tag-obligatory-worship","tag-perfunctory-obedience","tag-perfunctory-worship","tag-seek-his-face","tag-what-a-weariness-this-is","tag-when-i-dont-desire-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}