8-16-2020 What God Hungers For Psalm 50
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
I was reading another one of those articles, "How to Get People to Come to Church" It said you need to help them raise their self-esteem, teach them to handle anger, to deal with depression, to save their marriages, give them strength to face all kinds of trouble in this world. All of those are good things, and we ought to do those things around here, and we do. But it reminded me of the story where someone went the church where Abraham Lincoln worshipped and asked the pastor, "Will Abraham Lincoln be in the services today?" He replied, "No, but the Almighty God will."
What do you think? Is it possible to get people to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God? I think that in some of our churches today, we work hard, we want to do things well and right when we do them in the name of Jesus, but something is missing. I think in many of our churches today, YHWH, God the Father, is missed, and I believe it is the mandate of every preacher of the gospel to tell people about Jesus, including me.
Jay Kessler, a former president of Youth for Christ was filling in for a pastor friend. On the way to "after church pie and fellowship," a young man walked beside him and said, "I hope you’re not offended in my saying this, but I don’t come here to the church to hear you or the pastor preach. I come to meet the very fine young ladies who are members of this church. In fact, I am an atheist, I don’t believe in God." Kessler says that you could tell that this atheist braced himself for the preachers reaction to this shocking news and that he sort of enjoyed shocking people.
The preacher said, "Tell me what God you don’t believe in, and I may not believe in Him either." The preacher knew that whatever this atheist thought that God is, it was wrong—his view of God is wrong. You don’t have to be an atheist though, to have a wrong view of God.
Transition:
As we continue our journey through the book of Psalms, I want to spend this morning on Psalm 50. This psalm is for people who went to church, quoted Scripture, sang spiritual songs, and even had a very close idea of who God really is in their heads. Yet God calls these people wicked. They claimed to be God’s people, said they believed in Him. But He said, "I am not the God you believe Me to be."
Psalm 50 is one of twelve Asaph psalms (50; 73–83). The first Book of Chronicles informs us that David appointed “some of the sons of Asaph for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals”
(1 Chron. 25:1)
And David and the commanders of the army set apart for the service the sons of Asaph, of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who prophesied with stringed instruments, with harps, and with cymbals. And their inventory of the men of the work and for their duty was:
This Psalm 50 is the first of the Asaph psalms and the only one in Book 2, separated from the other eleven that are located in Book 3 (Pss. 73–83).
Scripture Reading:Psalm 50
A psalm of Asaph.
1 The Supreme God, God, Yahweh, has spoken and summoned the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2 From Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
3 Our God comes and he is not silent. Before him fire devours, and around him it is very tempestuous.
4 He summons the heavens above and the earth that he might judge his people:
5 “Gather to me my loyal ones, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”
6 And the heavens declare his righteousness, because God himself is judge. Selah
7 “Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you. I am God, your God.
8 It is not concerning a lack of your sacrifices that I rebuke you, and your burnt offerings are before me continually.
9 I will not take from your house a bull or from your stalls a he-goat,
10 because every animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know every bird of the mountains, and every moving creature in the field is mine.
12 If I were hungry I would not tell you, because the world and its fullness are mine.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a thank offering and pay your vows to the Most High.
15 And call me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.”
16 But to the wicked God says, “What right have you to recite my statutes and mention my covenant with your mouth,
17 while you yourself hate discipline, and cast my words behind you?
18 When you see a thief, then you are pleased with him, and your association is with adulterers.
19 You give your mouth free rein for evil, and you harness your tongue to deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your mother’s son.
21 These things you have done, and I have been silent; You imagined that I was just like you. I will rebuke you and present an argument before your eyes.
22 Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there will be none to deliver.
23 He who sacrifices a thank offering honors me, and he who orders his way; I will show him the salvation of God.”
Matt Olson is famously quoted say, “The thing that matters most about you is your view of God” What is YHWH like? YHWH is like Jesus, the Christ. The attributes of YHWH are seen in Christ. Love, mercy, compassion, purity, sovereignty, and might to name a few. God’s supreme attribute is holiness and love. God is holy love. Christ is love. Everyone was accepted and loved by our Lord knows Him.
He is holy.
Every now and then, someone saw His holiness. You might remember in the Old Testament, God saying to Moses, "You’re standing on holy ground."? Isaiah had been going to church all his life. One day, he saw what was always there, the Holy Lord God.
He heard the angels declare, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty."
Those who were closest to Jesus Christ experienced His love, but they also experienced what R. C. Sproul calls the "Trauma of Holiness."
Mark 4:37 tells us, "One night in their tiny boat on the Sea of Galilee
And a great storm of wind developed, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already being filled with water.
As the storm became worse the disciples were frightened. Jesus was sleeping
38 And he was in the stern sleeping on the cushion, and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, is it not a concern to you that we are perishing?” 39 And he woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Be quiet! Be silent!” And the wind abated and there was a great calm.
What did Jesus say next?
And he said to them, “Why are you fearful? Do you not yet have faith?”
Now the sea was calm. There was no longer a physical threat to their lives so they were no longer afraid. Right? WRONG!!!
The next verse says they were even more terrified!
And they were terribly frightened and began to say to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Sigmund Freud expressed a theory that people invent religion out of fear of nature; that is, we feel helpless before earthquakes and floods and disease. So, according to Freud, "We invent a God who has power over these things." The significant thing in this story is that the fear of the disciples increased after the threat of the storm was removed. In Christ, they saw a power more frightening than they had ever seen in nature, and they were in the presence of the Holy God.
Transition:
What God Hungers For
What God Hungers For
This Psalm starts with God bursting onto the scene in glory and grandeur, calling the people to Him that He might render judgment upon them.
Maybe recently you’ve thought, “I wish God would burst on my scene. Why doesn’t He come physically and give me His counsel, give me His direction in a way that’s unmistakable. Why doesn’t He speak at least once a year to me audibly, or even once a decade. Why is God so strangely silent?”
The psalmist is ultimately alluding to the day the Lord comes physically, sets up His kingdom, and ushers in the Millennium. But why doesn’t He do it now? I suggest the reason the Lord is strangely and wonderfully silent—at least to our own ears and eyes—is because He’s teaching us how to hear with the ear of faith, how to walk with steps of faith.
You see, if I could hear God audibly or see Him physically, my faith would not develop the way it needs to develop. God wants me to hear that still, small voice with the ears of the inner man, the spirit, to see that which is neither physical nor material. Why? To prepare me for eternity. Because faith will be essential throughout eternity, our Father is faithful to teach us about faith before we get there. One day, He will indeed burst on the scene physically. Until that day, He’s teaching us to hear and walk by faith.
God appears on the scene and then renders His judgment. He starts by indicting His people in two ways: First, He’ll indict the religious for their formality and then the rebellious for their hypocrisy.
I. The Calling from the Judge (vv:8-15)
I. The Calling from the Judge (vv:8-15)
The first accusation this Judge calls out regards their view of sacrifice (50:7–15). He gives an exhortation about sacrifice and then moves to an injunction to sacrifice (50:14–15)
“Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you. I am God, your God.
It is not concerning a lack of your sacrifices that I rebuke you, and your burnt offerings are before me continually.
YHWH has no problem with their sacrifices or their burnt offerings. The “continual burnt offerings” were those sacrifices made in the morning and afternoon services.
9 I will not take from your house a bull or from your stalls a he-goat, 10 because every animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
YHWH explains why He has no need of the sacrifices: He owns all the animals and birds of the forests, and the cattle “on a thousand hills.” So he has a sufficient supply, if indeed this is what he needs.
If I were hungry I would not tell you, because the world and its fullness are mine.
The argument here is against the pagan idea that God actually needs the animal sacrifices to sustain him.
“You’ve been offering sacrifices to Me in a way that seems obligatory,” the Lord says. “You act like I need these things from you, as if I need your money to keep Me in business. That’s not so. Because I own everything, I need nothing.”
WHAT DOES GOD HUNGER FOR THEN??
God doesn’t need our money—The truth is that God doesn’t need us at all. It is we who need Him and need to give, because as we do, we give away our tendency to be selfish. That’s the beauty of God’s command to tithe. He knows our tendency to be greedy and to hold on too tightly. God so loved the world that He gave, and He wants us to be like Him. We don’t have to give, we get to give and, in so doing, we free ourselves from our own selfishness by making investments in heaven that will bear eternal dividends.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
The question appeals to the perception of the audience: “Do you really think I eat the flesh of bulls …?”
Here comes the injunction:
Offer to God a thank offering and pay your vows to the Most High.
This is the “thanksgiving offering” (Lev. 7:12–15). The vows are those made when one is in trouble and promises to make a sacrifice to God when the trouble passes.
What does God really want from you? Just for you to acknowledge His goodness all day long. When you’re driving in your car, instead of complaining about the traffic, thank the Lord that you’re alive and that your car works at all! Worship Him in everything.
[(Hebrews 13:15)]:
Therefore through him let us offer up a sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.
Offer the sacrifice of praise continually!
And call me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.”
“Don’t bother me,” people say. “I’ve got enough problems of my own.” Not God. He says, “Call upon Me and I’ll deliver you.”
Transition:
I. The Calling from the Judge (vv:7-15)
I. The Calling from the Judge (vv:7-15)
So this Judge calls them out for a wrong view of sacrifice.
The second accusation is in regards to their ethical behavior (50:16–21)
II. The Condemnation by the Judge (vv:16-21)
II. The Condemnation by the Judge (vv:16-21)
The previous verses were spoken to the whole people of God. Now God, through the psalmist turns to the “wicked” who fall within the bounds of the covenant but have no regard for it. These next few verses are God’s exhortation about commandments and their response (50:16–21)
But to the wicked God says, “What right have you to recite my statutes and mention my covenant with your mouth,
God asks, “Why are you quoting Scripture and claiming promises when you have ignored My instruction?”
while you yourself hate discipline, and cast my words behind you?
The picture of “casting behind” is that of a person walking along carrying a burden, and to get rid of it, the person casts it behind.
The rebellious don’t care what God says.
When you see a thief, then you are pleased with him, and your association is with adulterers.
This concerns the eighth (Exod. 20:15) and the seventh (Exod. 20:14) commandments.
You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your mother’s son.
This concerns the ninth commandment (Exod. 20:16).
These things you have done, and I have been silent; You imagined that I was just like you. I will rebuke you and present an argument before your eyes.
One of the great human misconceptions about God is that He is exactly like human beings, and mistakenly people read human intentions and ways of thinking into their view of God.
Transition:
II. The Condemnation by the Judge (vv:16-21)
II. The Condemnation by the Judge (vv:16-21)
With the calling out of their view of sacrifice, and their ethical behavior. Now the psalmist moves to God’s final warning and admonition (50:22–23)
III. The Consideration of the Judge (vv:22-23)
III. The Consideration of the Judge (vv:22-23)
Now the address is to a certain segment of the community, those who violate the covenant by disobeying his commandments.
Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there will be none to deliver.
I think the forgetting can be very intentional. When we as Christians want to sin, we sometimes try to push God out of our thoughts—I know this because I have been guilty of this myself. I was just talking to Scott Trask yesterday about the fact that atheists truly think that if they do not believe in God, that somehow that thought makes it true that God cannot exist: just simply based on their own unbelief. What’s even worse is we are sometimes guilty as Christians of the same exact thing by forgetting about God conveniently to fulfil willful sins that we somehow refuse to fully acknowledge as sin—that is crazy, but it happens!
So what do we do about it? YHWH tells us in the very last verse:
He who sacrifices a thank offering honors me, and he who orders his way; I will show him the salvation of God.”
This refers back to those in verse 14 who are commanded to “sacrifice thank offerings.”
“I will show him the salvation of God”
This last phrase is exactly what God hungers for! In the context— especially in light of the previous verse— the salvation of God is salvation from the wrath of God. But the obvious application for us today is proving through obedience...
“he who orders his way”
the accepting of Jesus, the Christ, as the Lord of our whole life is salvation! What exactly does this look like? The apostle Paul tells us:
I die every day—yes indeed, by my boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord!
“I die daily” echoes Jesus’ command to those who want to follow Him: “If anyone would come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23
And he said to them all, “If anyone wants to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross every day and follow me.
Paul saw his life as a daily death to himself so that he, and we, may live for our Lord.
So What?
So What?
We, too, can say, “I die daily.” Paul was totally sold out to God, and we can be, as well. Sin, the flesh, and this world will continually compete for our attention and demand our participation. But when we die daily, we consider ourselves unable to respond to those temptations.
If you have died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you submit to them as if living in the world?
A dead man has no personal agendas or rights. He is not tempted to sin because he is dead to everything around him. “You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world”
So What?
So What?
So are you a religious person who has fallen into formality, going through the motions? Are you a rebellious person, living disobediently but still claiming promises and quoting Scripture? The solution is to confess and then go on to worship thankfully and to walk righteously, for then you will be rewarded eternally.
God does not want feel-good ritual and lazy followers; He wants us, and our praise to Him needs to reflect true righteousness and thanksgiving.
Jesus said, "I live for the sole purpose to bring glory to My Father." Why?
Is God on some ego trip? No, He made us and knows us, and He knows what some of you have learned and experienced: What robs Him of glory, robs us of joy. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied with Him.
Find your satisfaction in the Lord, and you will find the treasure and pleasure of your life. God loves you and wants so desperately to bring His treasure and pleasure to you that He sent His only Son to die for your sins. In Romans 5:8, the Bible says that God clearly loves us!
but God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Even though God will allow man to go on in his sin past the point of no return—like in the case of atheists— He loves the sinner so desperately that He gave Christ to die so that the door to salvation could be open. He loves you! Have you ever wished with Louisa Fletcher who wrote in a poem, "I wish there was some wonderful place in the land of beginning again where all our mistakes and all our heartaches and all our poor, selfish grief could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door and never put on again."
There is a place like that. It is found in Jesus Christ. Would you come to Him? Would you say, "Lord, no longer will take You for granted. I come to Christ as my Savior and Lord." Will you do that today? He is waiting. As a matter of fact, He has been waiting for you for a long time.
So What?
So What?
In Conclusion:
The true meaning of sacrifice is a relationship with God. The law and the commandments remind us of the ethical life, which is the essence of a life of faith.
YHWH hungers for you!
And for you who are believers, what do you have to offer God? Have you offered yourself completely?
Do you give God what doesn’t really cost you that much or do you lay everything before Him and let Him do what He wants with it?