What Instigates Your Worship?



Psalm 50
A Psalm of Asaph.
1The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
3Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest.
4He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
5“Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
6The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Selah
7“Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.
8Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me.
9I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds.
10For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
11I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.
12“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.
13Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
14Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High,
15and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
16But to the wicked God says: “What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips?
17For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.
18If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers.
19“You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit.
20You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.
21These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
22“Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
23The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!”

It is only natural that the Psalms would challenge our worship lives. This is a book of prayers, petitions, exhortations, and challenges. Of course the motivations of our worship should be questioned by the psalmists.

This psalm takes a rather clever twist. As the reader engages in the text they cannot help but be reminded of the lack of true worship in the lives of the unbelievers. There is almost a sense of vindication; God’s calling all those who don’t worship Him and demanding a response. But wait. When we get to verses 4 and 5, suddenly it is clear that God isn’t addressing those who don’t know Him, but us; those who claim Him as Lord! In this psalm, God share His disgust over the lackluster, half-hearted worship many of His followers are bringing to Him. Immediately we are forced to examine our own interior life and ask if we too are guilty of simply going through the motions when it comes to worship.

If trust in riches is folly, so is trust in an empty, formalistic religion. In this psalm Israel is on trial for turning the temple worship, which was intended to be a joyful, willing service to the Lord, into an empty ritual, which was done out of habit and to gain reward.The problem was with the evil attitudes in the hearts of the worshipers. Two major problems were apparent. The people of Israel were setting aside the first table of the law. Many in Israel thought they were doing God a favor with their offerings, imagining that he had need of their services. The logical conclusion of such thinking was that if God needed their offerings, he owed them something in return for their offerings. The Lord destroys this kind of thinking with two arguments. First, God is not like a human being who needs food; he is self-sufficient. Second, even if he needed offerings, he would not have to ask the Israelites for them, since everything in the world was already his. All the offerings Israel gave to the Lord already belonged to him. The obvious conclusion was that God owed the Israelites nothing for their offerings, so they should not place any confidence in the mere fact that they were offering the prescribed sacrifices.
Brug, J. F. ©1989. Psalms 1–72 (2nd ed., p. 206). Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Pub. House.

Here’s the thing; we already know that if you come to worship without your heart in your hands, you may as well stay home. If you’re just going through the motions why bother? If your spouse or child says to you, “Oh, yeah, I really love you” while they are looking at their phone or doing anything else, you have cause to question the veracity of the claim, right? Or how about if they claim to love you while constantly treating you poorly or ignoring you almost constantly? Those few brief moments when you give them your attention just aren’t going to make up for all that neglect. The same is true for God. If you’re bringing Him your body on Sunday morning to warm a pew but haven’t reached out in love to your neighbor or sought to live a merciful life, then why bother? If you spend that hour in church thinking about what to have for lunch, well – you get the point.

The prophet Micah bring this idea home as he writes to God’s people about what a worshipful life looks like.

Micah 6:1–8
1Hear what the Lord says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.
2Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel.
3“O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
5O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
6“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

It’s fairly simple, actually. True worship is a matter of the heart, translating love out through the hands. When I love others, I’m worshiping God.

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