Worship God Rightly
As you listened to Psalm 50, it may have sounded different than you would expect from a Psalm. Psalm 50 recounts a prophetic word from God to the people of Israel. It stands out because with Psalms, we often think of men speaking to God. It is the only Asaph Psalm in book 2 bridging a set of Psalms by the Sons of Korah and set of David Psalms. There may be many reasons that it is dropped in here, but at minimum this Psalm picks up the theme of a Glorious God and His kingdom. This God who gives an invitation to Israel to come to Him truly. An invitation David takes up in Psalm 51.
We will walk through this Psalm in 4 parts:
1) God the Supreme Judge is Announced
2) God rebukes misguided and empty worship
3) God rebukes hypocritical worship
4) God invites us to worship him truly
The Supreme Judge is Announced (v.1-6)
Psalm 50:1-3
“The Mighty One, God the Lord speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shine forth. Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest.”
The LORD is God over all creation
The Psalm right at the get go burst into praise of God. It has poetic language of the God’s activity and ownership over all things. From farthest east to west, all seen or imagined, God reigns over.
v.10 “every beast of the forrest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills”
v.11: “I know all the birds of the hills, & all that moves in the field is mine”
God doesn’t just own all things, but knows, understands, and upholds all things. We may own things, but aren’t all knowing and did not create all things.
The LORD is the judge over His chosen people
The language used in verse 3 are descriptions of God appearing at Mount Sinai.
“Before him is a devouring fire”
“Around him a mighty tempest”
God wants Israel to remember this moment of him speaking, setting them apart, He is not silent to his people. He is the God who came to his people at Sinai and entered into a special relationship with them. And He has spoken again, this time with a Word against His people.
The LORD calls his creation to gather his people and bear witness as he judges
Psalm 50:4-6
“He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: ‘Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!’ The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge!”
He is the supreme judge, and calls all his works to bear witness. All creation is called to the scene to witness. The word call is the same word as he summons in verse 1. God calls/summons creation to gather his people and bear witness, to bear testimony to the the righteousness of God. This may include heavenly beings, but this more has the sense of personified creation.
This reminds me of the scene in Lion King when Simba is presented. The king is calling all to come and see and testify to the event. All of Creation bears witness that Simba is the future king. Animals gather and bow down, the clouds part and the sun shines on him.
God’s authority emanates so powerfully that creation is vibrantly described in this Psalm as gathering his people to assemble before God and called to bear witness in this judgement.
This is the same witness we have today. Psalm 50:6 and Psalm 19:1-3,
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, night to night reveals knowledge.”
See the activity here of creation. Creation is not a neutral party, it’s declaring, proclaiming, revealing, gathering, speaking, bearing witness to the Glory of God. Every tree, every blade of grass, every bird bears witness.
God’s creation is an overwhelming witness for us today, and for Israel. Try to make it home today w/o seeing or hearing this witness, you can’t! All of creation, like a plant on your window sill that leans toward the sun no matter where it is located, bears a constant and faithful witness to the Glory and Righteousness of God.
God calls creation here as a surrounding witness to the truthfulness and righteousness of God, who is going to rebuke his people. There is no second opinion needed or higher court to appeal to. God is the creator of all things, and God himself is the judge of all things.
Now that everyone is gathered, (what an incredible image and sight), God will address his people.
God Rebukes Misguided and Empty Worship (v7-15)
Psalm 50:8-9
“Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your fold.”
Verses 10-15 go on to explain two reasons why God will not accept their sacrifices.
1) They thought that God had needs they were meeting
Other nations sacrificed to their idols to appease or care for them. Their gods need to be carried, put to bed, cleaned, and fed. Their idols needed to be served, protected, and defended. Israel started to follow suite and see God similarly, but God teases this out further to help them really understand. What ever you think you give me to enrich me is already mine; “the cattle on a thousand hills.” Whatever you give me is not to feed me; “Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” As if I’m hungry and need to be fed? And if He needed help, he wouldn’t ask you, he could call thousands of angels to serve any need he would ever have.
The Apostle Paul preaching in Acts makes this point abundantly clear.
Acts 17:24
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
This group is not rebuked because of a lack of sacrifices, but because of a misunderstanding of what the sacrifices were for. They viewed God in a transactional way. We scratch his back and he scratches ours, thinking we are giving God what he wants so we get what we want.
If we think this way, our worship and efforts may be to attain things other than God himself. We want to earn a certain blessing or feeling, that he may or may not give.
But when we worship God, he will give us himself, and it is enough. Let it be enough for you, to know that God is for you whether you receive the blessing you want or not, the healing you want or not, the feelings you want or not. He has given himself and it is enough, it is all we need.
There are needs being met when we worship God. It’s not his needs, but ours. We need forgiveness, we need hope, we need help.
Psalm 50:15
“call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you…”
We can genuinely and freely come to him for rest for our souls, in the midst of a broken and painful world. He wants to be worshipped, not bargained with.
2) The second error mentioned twice in the Psalm was a lack of thanksgiving
Their worship may have drifted to merely external practice and form, rather than a heart level motivation of thanksgiving and praise to God. He wants our genuine delight, not a mask or external posture. He doesn’t want us to just act happy, but to be happy. And he has given us all we need to genuinely love and delight in him.
One temptation here with our services may be our Liturgy. I can drive home without even thinking about it. The familiarity can cause me to zone out or think on other things. We can tune out as well with the familiarity of our liturgy. We hope that you anticipate these moments, instead of tuning out or zoning out because you know what comes next. We hope that each time you hear a welcome or commission, that it is more real, more joyful, and more assuring each time. That every time of confession you confess sins, so that when you are assured of God’s grace, you believe and rejoice in it more each time.
God Rebukes Hypocritical Worship (v.16-21)
Psalm 50:16-18
“But to the wicked God says: What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers.”
This other segment of Israel addressed by God is those that are double minded, that are two-faced. Those who declare God covenant in public, but live in contradiction to it. The passage goes on to list ways they have contradicted the 10 commandments, which are the core elements of God’s covenant with his people at Sinai.
- They give approval to thieves
- They share company with adulterers
- They speak lies and deceit
- They slander their brothers and sisters
They might not be thieves or adulterers themselves, but they betray what God said is good, and give approval to evil, all while reciting and giving lip service to God commands and thinking they dwell securely. God lands his rebuke in verse 21 with a profound statement. He says:
“These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself.”
They thought God was like them. There is no neutral ground in this life. Either by faith in Jesus Christ we are being made into the image of God, an image of all that is good and right and true, or we will be making God into our own image. If we are envious, we may think God is envious. If we are careless, we may think he is careless. If we excuse our lusts or sins, we desire to believe that God likewise excuses these things. We make God in our sinful image to justify ourselves.
There are all kinds of buildings in our city, that have the words “Jesus” or “church” on them, that do exactly this. They have made God one like themselves, but the real God who knows all things, sees it, and is not pleased. But this Psalm is a warning for us this morning. Do you follow the very things you profess? Do you delight in God and see good in his instructions? Or do you go on sinning willfully, thinking that either God doesn’t see it, or worse, that he gives approval of it?
You may fool everyone around you, but God isn’t fooled. And if that’s you, or you are guilty of any of these other things, there is amazing news. Remarkably, after all of this, rather than just bringing the hammer down, God offers an invitation to his sinful people.
God Invites us to Worship Him Truly (v.22-23)
Psalm 50:22-23
“Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver! The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!”
There is a word of instruction and hope to both of the groups corrected here. To the first group he says:
I have no needs for you to meet, do not worship me in any obligatory sense, a sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me.
To the second group he says:
the one who orders his way rightly, who follows me, to him I will show the salvation of God!
There is a foreshadowing of Jesus in this Psalm. Verses 3-5 talk about God speaking from Mount Sinai, but in verse 2, it says God shines forth out of Mount Zion. God sent forth his salvation from mount Zion, from Jerusalem. Salvation is found in Jesus Christ. Jesus, the sacrificial lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus was the complete and perfect sacrifice for us, so all that is left is to believe it and offer thanksgiving and praise to Him.
When Jesus came, he came looking for worshippers that will worship him in Spirit and in Truth, which is an appropriate summary of the invitation at the end of this Psalm. Worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, with thanksgiving.
We should feel relief, joy, and rest because of Jesus. We should feel gratitude, wonder and love for him. We rejoice and praise him, we celebrate that he has saved us and will keep us. And as we worship him, he will continue to show us the fruit of this salvation. So comprehensive is this salvation that though we will one day die, scripture says: “not a hair of your head will perish.” For those in Christ, to die means to be present with Jesus in glory forever.
God’s invitation stands this morning. Believe in Jesus, the perfect sacrifice on your behalf, and be saved. Worship God wholeheartedly, with joy and thanksgiving for all that He has done.
That victory is what we celebrate at this table.
We share this table together as a reminder of what Christ has accomplished on the cross for us. Jesus’s body, symbolized in the bread, was torn apart for our wickedness, for our thankless and hypocritical worship, that we may have peace with God.