Scripture Daily

Context No. 2254 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 50:1-16: in context

1The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset. 2Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines out. 3Our God comes, and does not keep silent. A fire devours before him. It is very stormy around him. 4He calls to the heavens above, to the earth, that he may judge his people: 5“Gather my saints together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” 6The heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Selah. 7“Hear, my people, and I will speak. Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. 8I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. 9I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens. 10For every animal of the forest is mine, and the livestock on a thousand hills. 11I know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are mine. 12If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. 13Will I eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High. 15Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” 16But to the wicked God says, “What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips,

In this psalm, God the judge speaks to his people about their worship, and he corrects a misunderstanding about sacrifice. I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices, he says; but do not think I need them. Every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? And he tells them what he truly desires: offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving; call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you.

God corrects a subtle error about worship: the notion that our sacrifices and gifts somehow supply a need in God, that he depends on our offerings. He dismantles this: every animal is already his, the world and all in it are his; he does not need our gifts, for he lacks nothing. If he were hungry, he would not tell us, for he owns everything. Our offerings do not feed him or supply any lack in him; he is not served as though he needed anything. This corrects the idea that our worship gives God something he needs. And having cleared away that error, God says what he truly desires. It is not gifts to supply his needs, for he has none; it is a grateful heart and a trusting one. Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving, he says; and call on me in the day of trouble. What God wants is not our attempts to give him what he lacks, but our thanksgiving, hearts grateful for his goodness, and our trust, calling on him in our need. He desires the response of a grateful and dependent heart, not gifts to fill a lack he does not have. This reframes how we think about worship and about God. We can slip into imagining that God needs our worship, our offerings, our service, that we are supplying something he lacks, even doing him a favor. God dismantles this: he needs nothing; the world is his. Our worship does not supply his needs; rather, it is the response of grateful and dependent hearts to the God who supplies all our needs. He is not served by human hands, Paul says, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all life and breath and everything. And what he desires from us is thanksgiving and trust, not gifts to feed him. This calls us to a worship of thanksgiving and trust rather than one that imagines it supplies God's needs. God owns everything and needs nothing; our offerings do not feed him or fill a lack. What he desires is a grateful heart that offers thanksgiving and a trusting heart that calls on him in trouble. Offer to God thanksgiving, he says; call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you. And we are called to worship not as those supplying God's needs, which do not exist, but as grateful and dependent hearts responding to the God who supplies all our needs, offering him the thanksgiving and trust he truly desires.

Do I slip into imagining that my worship, offerings, or service supply something God needs, that I am doing him a favor or filling a lack in him, and can God's word that every animal is his and the world is his, so that he needs nothing, together with his desire for thanksgiving and for a heart that calls on him in trouble, move me to a worship not of supplying God's needs, which do not exist, but of grateful and dependent response to the God who supplies all my needs?

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