God’s Glory
In God’s Glory, part of the series Six Things About God That Don’t Change, we are reminded that God alone is worthy of our highest honor and wholehearted worship. In Malachi 1:6 – 2:2, God challenges His priests—and us—to stop offering half-hearted devotion and instead give Him our very best. When we treat God as less than holy, our worship loses its meaning, but when we honor Him above all else, His name is magnified among the nations. This message invites us to renew our reverence, live with integrity, and set our hearts to glorify God in every part of life.
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God’s Glory
If you had a high-ranking person, like a governor, coming to your home for dinner, you’d do everything in your power to provide the best meal you possibly could. None of us, knowing that someone important was coming to our home for a meal, would look in the refrigerator and say, “I don’t see anything growing on that half-eaten casserole, and those cooked vegetables are only a week old, that should be fine.” None of us would do that.
But in today’s scripture from Malachi 1, the Lord says that’s exactly what the priests and the people are doing to God. They’re giving God leftovers and what’s undesirable and they’re failing to give God the glory, honor, and respect the Lord deserves. Today’s scripture is a powerful rebuke to priests and people alike who failed to honor God properly.
Listen to Malachi 1:6–2:2 (NIV).
“A son honors his father, and a slave 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 priests who show contempt for my name.
“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’
“By offering defiled food on my altar.
“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’
“By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame 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.
“Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the Lord Almighty.
“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. My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty.
“When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the Lord.
“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.
“And now, you priests, this warning is for you. If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.”
This passage is a strong rebuke against the priests. Last week, I mentioned the question-and-answer format, which is characteristic of Malachi, and in today’s passage, there are many questions being asked. God asks, in verse six, “If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?”
Some of you will remember Rodney Dangerfield, a Grammy Award-winning comedian, whose signature line was,
“I don’t get no respect! No respect at all.”
In a sense, that’s what God is saying in Malachi. God isn’t getting any respect at all, not from the priests, not from the people.
In verse eight, God asks,
“When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong?”
Why would the people bring offerings like that? Why would the priests accept them?
Imagine you’re a shepherd, raising sheep or goats. You want God’s blessing on your flocks and herds, so you want to do what’s expected as far as sacrifices, so you think to yourself, “If I have to sacrifice a lamb or a goat, I’ll sacrifice the worst ones I have — the ones I don’t want to reproduce or won’t be able to sell — and I’ll keep the best and the biggest, so my flocks will become more and more valuable, and I’ll become richer, and my family will be more prosperous and comfortable. I’ll offer in sacrifice the lame, sick, and blind animals, and get rid of them and keep the healthy ones.”
That decision makes sense from an animal husbandry perspective — you’d like your healthiest animals to live and have the most offspring. However, from God’s perspective, it’s disrespectful; it’s not showing God the glory and honor God deserves.
Instead of giving God the very best they could offer, they were giving God their leftovers. Malachi is criticizing the priests for allowing people to give God their worst, rather than their best. God deserves the first fruits of our labor, the best we can offer.
Both in Malachi’s time and in the present, the goal of a prophet is to shift public opinion, to change what people find admirable and what they find disgraceful. Malachi wants people to understand that it’s disgraceful not to give God the glory and honor God deserves and it’s admirable to give God our best — the best of our worship, energy, time, and material resources.
Malachi is challenging the priests and people of his time, as well as us, to find it unacceptable to give to God what is undesirable to ourselves.
One of the first radio spots I did — more than 25 years ago — was about a woman who called the Butterball Turkey Company’s hotline to ask if a turkey, frozen for 23 years, was still edible. The representative said the turkey would likely be safe to eat if the freezer stayed at or below zero degrees, but warned that the flavor would have greatly deteriorated.
The woman replied, “That’s what I thought. We’ll just give it to the church.” That woman would have fit right in with the people Malachi was speaking to. If something is undesirable to us, why would we think it would be acceptable to give to God?
Malachi condemns the priests for corrupting worship and not properly teaching the people. God wants to know — where is the glory, honor, and respect I deserve? To give someone glory is to give them praise and honor. Last week, we talked about God’s love not changing, and God wanting our response to be to love God and other people in return.
God’s glory — God being worthy of respect, honor, and praise — doesn’t change, and the response God is looking for from us is honoring God in, and with, the whole of our life.
The word “glory” appears over 600 times in the Bible. While the exact count varies slightly by translation, the word is a recurring theme. It’s found 376 times in the Old Testament and 230 times in the New Testament. The English word “glory” is a translation of many words in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, which can contribute to the variations in translation. The meaning of “glory” in the Bible is rich, referring to God’s greatness, fame, and reputation, as well as honor, or worth.
A skeptical shepherd in Malachi’s time might ask, “Why is God deserving of my best animal? What is the glory of God I’m supposed to honor and respect?” We might say the key aspects of God’s glory include God’s character.
God’s glory is the sum of all God’s attributes — love, wisdom, power, justice, and beauty — manifested for all to see and experience. God’s glory is displayed through creation, in the stars, oceans, birds, and fall foliage, which are public displays of God’s creative artistry.
God’s glory is revealed through the Lord’s works throughout history, especially through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In some Bible verses, “glory” refers to the visible, radiant presence of God, such as the pillar of fire that led the Israelites, or the glory that filled the Tabernacle.
Contemplating God’s glory can lead to joy and transformation, as it frees people from anxieties and helps them become more like the Lord. We see this in the lives of many Christians we admire from across the centuries, like Teresa of Avila, who I mentioned two weeks ago. God’s glory is eternal and distinct from earthly glory, which is temporary and material.
The Hebrew word for glory, “kavod”, literally means “heavy”, suggesting a sense of divine weight and importance.
The priests and people in Malachi’s time were not treating God and God’s glory with the weight and importance God deserved. God’s glory is dishonored by apathetic and disrespectful worship, where the people, especially priests, give God leftovers, rather than their best.
We can laugh about the Butterball turkey story, but each of us needs to reflect on our life, worship, priorities, choices, and giving. Is God truly first in my life, shaping, guiding, and influencing every aspect of my life? Or am I like a shepherd looking out for my own comfort and prosperity, and giving to God last rather than first?
Is my relationship with God determining how I treat other people? Do I show God respect by how I prepare for worship before I even arrive? Do my life choices and decisions reflect that I want to glorify God in all that I do? Am I growing in my devotion to God and honoring God in my life?
We don’t want to be guilty of dishonoring God’s glory, as we see in Malachi, where the people show contempt for God by offering polluted and blemished sacrifices, which implies that God is less worthy of honor than an employer or a politician.
Giving blind, lame, or sick animals to God is disrespectful, and shows a lack of genuine devotion and a willingness to give God what’s easy and convenient, rather than what’s best. God doesn’t want careless and half-hearted worship.
As Jaime has sung about today, and on her album, God desires our complete and total surrender. The priests’ and people’s lack of fervor and commitment in worship is an insult to God’s character. They’re giving God their leftovers instead of their first fruits.
What we can do differently than the people of Malachi’s time is resolve to honor God.
Eric Liddell, of Scotland, ran in the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. He won the gold medal in the 400-meter race and a bronze medal in the 200-meter race, but he withdrew from the 100-meter race — his best event — because the heats were on a Sunday, and he didn’t compete in the relays for the same reason. His decision was a testament to his convictions about the Sabbath, and his resolve to honor God was depicted in the Academy Award winning film Chariots of Fire.
There’s a fictionalized scene in the movie, where American sprinter Jackson Sholtz hands Liddell a note just before the 400-meter race that reads, “It says in the good book, he who honors me, I will honor.”
That line is a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 2:30, which states,
“Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever,’ but now the Lord declares: ‘Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.’”
That verse reveals God’s judgment against the priestly line of Eli, due to his sons’ wickedness and his failure to discipline them. It signifies a reversal of God’s previous promise of an eternal priesthood for Eli’s family, which is taken from them because they failed to take God and their duties seriously, they didn’t lead with integrity, and they disrespected God’s glory.
Malachi gives a similar warning to the priests in Malachi 2:4-6.
“And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty.
“My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.”
In Spain, we heard the inspiring story of a priest, like Levi, who resolved to honor and revere God and stood in awe of God’s name. In the city of Tarragona, which in the third century was a Roman city called Tarraco, there was a bishop and two deacons.
On January 21, 259 AD, Bishop Fructuosus and his deacons, Augurius and Eulogius, were martyred during the persecution of Christians under Roman Emperor Valerian who reigned 253−260 AD). The provincial governor ordered them to be burned alive in the city’s amphitheater because of their faith.
It was humbling to stand in that amphitheater and to think of their faith, resolve, and courage. Their martyrdom was a significant event that helped to spread Christianity in the region. According to the historical accounts of his martyrdom, the bishop spoke loudly to the crowd outside the amphitheater, offering comfort and reassurance before he was burned at the stake. His last words included:
“My brethren, the Lord will not leave you a flock without a pastor. He is faithful to his promises. Do not grieve for me. The hour of my suffering is short. You will not long be lacking a shepherd, nor can the love and promises of the Lord fail you either here or in the hereafter. For what you look upon now seems but the weakness of a single hour.”
May we show similar resolve to honor and glorify God in all we say and do.
Prayer — Holy God, we thank You for Your Word that exposes our hearts and calls us back to true worship. You are worthy of all glory, honor, and praise. Forgive us for the times we have offered You less than our best — when our hearts have been distracted, our worship half-hearted, or our service routine. Teach us to honor You and revere You as our Lord in every part of our lives. May our words, our work, our relationships, and our worship reflect Your greatness. Help us to set our hearts to give glory to Your name, not just in moments of worship, but in the way we live each day. Renew in us a deep reverence for who You are, and let our lives make Your name great among the people around us. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Questions for Discussion or Reflection
- What does this passage reveal about how the priests were dishonoring God? What attitudes or actions made their worship unacceptable to God? What might similar examples of neglect, or complacency, look like in our own spiritual lives?
- God says, “If I am a father, where is the honor due me?” (Malachi 1:6). What does it mean, in practical terms, to honor God and respect or revere God as Lord? How do we show (or fail to show) that kind of honor in our homes, work, or worship?
- The priests offered defiled sacrifices (Malachi 1:7–8). What might “blemished sacrifices” look like for us today? Are there ways we give God our leftovers — time, energy, resources, or attention — rather than our best?
- God challenges them: “Try offering these gifts to your governor!” (Malachi 1:8). What does this reveal about how seriously we take God’s worth compared to how we treat people in authority? How might our choices and attitudes change if we truly recognized God’s supreme value and majesty?
- In verse 11, God declares that His name will be great among the nations. What does this tell us about God’s ultimate purpose for His glory? How does our personal worship and obedience contribute to making God’s name great in the world?
- God warns the priests “if you do not resolve to honor my name” (Malachi 2:1–2). What does it mean to intentionally set our hearts to honor God? What are some spiritual practices or habits we could do to help us keep God’s glory at the center of our lives?
- How does this passage challenge us as believers who serve or lead in the church today? What lessons can we take about sincerity, reverence, and integrity in our service to God? How might our church better reflect honor and glory to God?