Psalm 50 | "A Sacrifice of Thanksgiving"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Have your Bible or your device, I encourage you to make your way to Psalm 50.

I chose this because it has in it twice the phrase sacrifices of Thanksgiving.

And I thought, wonderful, as we enter the Thanksgiving week, this will be a great opportunity to set our hearts right.

And then the Lord laughed at me.

He laughed at me because as I got to studying and diving into the depths of this passage, it follows right along last week in challenging our hearts, in leading us right into a place of conviction and challenge from the Word of God.

See, when we treat the Word of God as the Word of God, it's the text itself that drives what we talk about, it drives what we preach, not what we think it says, what it actually says.

So that's where we are headed this morning in Psalm 50.

If you have your Bible, I encourage you to follow along.

I'd like to read this passage for us as we dive into it.

It begins for us with a little heading that tells us it is a psalm, a song of a man named Asaph.

And Asaph says, the mighty one, God who is Yahweh, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.

Our God comes, he does not keep silence.

Before him is a devouring fire, around him is a mighty tempest.

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.

Hear, O my people, and I will speak.

O Israel, and I will testify against you.

I am God your God.

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 folds, for every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.

So if I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world in its fullness are mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of your trouble.

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

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're pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers.

You give your mouth free reign for evil, and your tongue frames deceit.

You sit and speak against your brother, you slander your own mother's son.

These 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.

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.

The one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you, the one to whom all praise is due.

Lord, as we enter this week of thanksgiving, we want to be able to give thanks to you.

We want to give thanks rightly and properly with hearts that are tuned to give thanks.

Open your word to us this morning and lead us as we as we look at it together to be challenged and changed and corrected by your word.

And we ask these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Guys up there, I'm I'm getting some feedback here behind me, some reverberation.

If you could work on that, I'd appreciate it.

In Christian circles today, we hear quite a bit about God speaking.

Authors will write that God speaks to them, or that they've heard the voice of God.

Even in the course of normal conversation, it's not uncommon to hear someone say, God said to me something.

Sometimes that's very benign.

We don't mean anything by it.

There's no inherent or subtle meaning attributed to those words.

But there are also occasions where God's speaking is a loaded statement, where people really truly do believe that God speaks to them.

Now, personally, I'm incredibly skeptical about those kinds of statements.

I think they tend to ignore several aspects of Scripture that indicate that God has finished his speaking with the completion of Scripture.

And so those who claim that God speaks to them seem to regularly report God speaking to them in ways that are encouraging and supportive and uplifting in their spirits.

I've not heard anyone say that God spoke to them to call them to repentance.

I've not heard anyone say that God spoke to them to issue judgment.

Now, because we have the written record of God speaking truth and clear revelation to his people, I think that we sometimes tend to think that God speaks all the time.

That it's a regular occurrence that God speaks.

Much like because we have our Bible that's so full of God's powerful working, we can get into the mode of thinking that miracles happen all the time.

That it's just a regular thing, that God performs miracles.

But just like miracles not happening all the time, God's speaking doesn't happen all the time.

In fact, if we think back in the Old Testament to the time when Samuel was called by God, Samuel didn't understand that God was speaking to him because it says God's speaking was rare in those days.

Before God led Israel out of Egypt, there had been some 400 years of silence.

After the end of the Old Testament, before the coming of Christ, there was another 400 years of silence.

I would submit to you that what is most common is God's silence.

And therefore, when God speaks, we need to watch out.

There are statements like this one in Psalm 50, verse 21.

Psalms 50:21

These things you have done, and I have been silent.

Now the scriptures tell us, right, why God is silent.

They tell us that when God is not speaking, he's being silent because he desires to be patient for all people to come to repentance.

God's silence is normal mostly because he's spoken to us through his son, Hebrews chapter 1 tells us.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

And we have the record of his speaking in our hands with us all the time in our devices.

But God's silence is normal.

It is his speaking that is uncommon.

And generally, when he does speak, you better cower in fear.

Asaph was one of three primary worship leaders established by King David.

So it's a song here about God speaking to his covenant people, gathered together at the tabernacle in Jerusalem or at the temple under Solomon, prepared to worship God in all of their normal ways.

They've gathered together to offer praise, to offer sacrifice to their God.

But this hymn is not an uplifting song.

It's not the kind of song that the worship team would step down from the platform and we would all cheer and clap afterwards.

It's not that kind of song.

Why?

Because God spoke.

Because God spoke.

He had been silent.

And now he speaks.

When God led Israel out of Egypt, he took them to a mountain that's called Sinai, where he would speak with Moses, so that Moses could then speak to the people on behalf of God.

And so God came down, as it were, from heaven to the top of Mount Sinai as the lawgiver.

And if you look at those passages in the Old Testament, in Numbers and in Deuteronomy, you will see that when the lawgiver spoke and the people heard his voice, the people begged Moses to tell God to be quiet.

They said, We are afraid to hear God speak.

But by the time of Asaph, in the time of King David, there wasn't any kind of similar concern about God's voice.

Worship had become normal.

It was ordinary.

And that spoke not so much about what people did in their worship, not what happened in their gatherings.

It spoke more about what their hearts were like.

It was a challenge to their hearts.

And that's kind of surprising because at this point in time, under the leadership of Asaph, worship among God's people was almost at its pinnacle.

We could probably argue that its pinnacle is under Solomon with the newly built temple.

This is leading up to that.

David has moved the center of God's worship from Shiloh to Jerusalem.

Asaph is writing a brand new hymnal for God's people.

Wonderful, amazing things are happening in worship.

And then God says, listen up.

I think that that highlights for us that even the most beneficial situations among God's people are not guaranteed to change their hearts.

So Asaph, the lead director of worship, wrote this song for God's people to sing.

And as they sang it, it was intended to generate awe and then fear of God.

Followed then by an evaluation of their hearts before that holy God.

May it be the same with us.

So this is for everyone here who claims to be a Christian, because this is for God's gathered people.

Everyone who names the name of Christ, everyone who is a disciple of Jesus needs to hear this and needs to hear what Asaph declares.

Here's what he says, first of all, as we begin in verse 1.

He says, You need to understand that your God is a righteous judge.

He's coming and he's going to speak.

And as he speaks, he's going to speak as the judge.

And not only is he going to speak as the judge, he's also going to be the one who speaks as the witness against you.

And not only is he going to speak as the judge and as the witness against you, he's also going to speak as the jury.

Which means you don't get to speak.

You get to listen and hear what God has to say.

Look what happens here.

First, we have this divine summons to appear in court in verse 1.

The mighty one, God, who is Yahweh, speaks and summons.

He summons the earth.

He summons everybody in the earth.

He summons everything that's created to come and to listen to the divine judge who's going to be speaking.

In verses two and three, we see what this arrival of this divine judge is like.

Out of Zion, that's a name for the temple mount, the place of God's presence, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.

Here is his glory.

God in all of his unrestrained glory, before him is all of this magnificence.

He comes, he does not keep silence.

Before him is a devouring fire, around him mighty tempest.

If you know your Old Testament, that sounds an awful lot like the people of Israel at Mount Sinai when God spoke.

Listen to the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 5, verse 22.

Deuteronomy 5:22

These words Yahweh spoke to all your assembly at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, out of the midst of the cloud and the thick darkness, with a loud voice.

So it's as though Asaph is reminding people in this hymn, you know your Bible.

You remember when God gathered us together at the mountain to hear him speak.

He said, We're gathered together in a similar way right now.

Now, what's interesting is if you go on in that passage in Deuteronomy chapter 5, you will see that when God spoke as the lawgiver, giving his word to his people, it scared the bejeebers out of the people.

Deuteronomy 5 · chapter mention

And they said to Moses, Moses, don't you come down, you get right back up there and you tell God not to talk to us anymore because we don't want to die.

This is what we we need to understand as we think about this from a New Testament Christian perspective.

This judge is the eternal word of God.

This judge is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Colossians chapter 1 tells us that he is the one who summoned creation into being.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

He is the one who upholds it by the word of his power.

He is the one who calls the sun from its beginning to its end.

Saint Augustine wrote, He has called the world from the rising of the sun until its going down.

He is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the word made flesh.

He is then God of gods, because by himself were all things made, and without himself was nothing made.

This is the word of God.

And as God's people, we stand and gather together on a Sunday morning before this judge, before this word of God.

And so as Asaph writes this, there is this reminiscent aspect to the Old Testament time when God's people gathered before the voice of God, the presence of God at Mount Sinai.

For Asaph, there's a ritualistic sense of every single opportunity God's people gathered together at the temple to worship, to sing praises, to sing songs, to be reminded, to be instructed of God's word.

And it's a reminder to us, too, that as we gather together, we do so, not simply in a building, because we like to do this.

But we gather in the Spirit to worship the Father in spirit and truth, and we do so before the divine judge.

Verse 6, the creation itself announces the judge is appearing.

It stands, the earth stands, as it were, as a bailiff in verse 4.

He calls to the heavens above and to the earth that he may judge his people.

The earth and the heavens in verse 6 declare his righteousness.

They are the a witness of God's character.

They're saying to everyone gathered together, here is the character, the righteous character of this judge.

He does everything right.

There's nothing that he says that is wrong.

So as we follow then in this sense of Asaph leading us in this hymn, we are reminded that we are gathered together on a weekly basis with the Lord's word revealed to us.

Just as the word was revealed to the people at Sinai, just as it's revealed through the divine judge here in the Asaph's Psalm.

We are gathered together before the Lord of creation, and in that sense we must gather with a sense of awe and even fear of hearing God speak.

We're going to see why that's so important here in a few moments.

Beginning in verse 7, then all the way through verse 15.

Asaph is sort of imagining as he's writing this the people of God all gathered together to worship.

And in his mind, they're sort of divided into categories.

And the first category is in verses 7 through 15.

And these are people who are very consistent in the routine of worship.

And he says to those people, your God is here to judge your worship.

He comes as judge, he comes as witness, he comes as jury, and he's here to judge your worship.

Remember, this is spoken to the gathered people of God.

Look at verse 5.

Gather to me my faithful ones who made a covenant with me.

These are the ones who have a relationship with God, those who claim the name of God.

They are gathered together.

And Asaph says, God is gathering together as judge against us.

Hear, O my people, and I will speak.

O Israel, I will testify against you.

I am God your God.

So there's this reminder, right?

This echo of Deuteronomy 6, what we call the Shema.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

This God, the divine judge, is coming before his people, gathered to worship, and he's telling them, you shut up and listen.

I've been silent.

Now I'm gonna talk and you're gonna listen to me.

Sometimes my wife and I will tell our children, No, I uh you need to look at my eyes while I talk to you.

It's as though God is saying, You come and you worship me on a regular basis, and you go through all of your patterns, you go through all of your rituals, you do all of this.

No, you you sit down and you stop talking and you you listen to me.

Notice the repetitions in verse 7.

Sometimes the most the most important words in your Bible are the smallest words.

I God says, I will testify against you.

I will speak, I will testify that I am God.

Not just any God, your God.

He says, I will speak.

So you be quiet and you pay attention.

I've been quiet for long enough.

Now I'm speaking and you pay attention.

I am going to testify against you.

God says, this is about my view of you.

God says, Well, all my people are gathered together, they're here for worship, they go through their normal routines, and now I'm going to tell you what I think of you.

You're going to stop telling me what you think of me, and I'm going to tell you what I think of you.

You see, how we perceive God and how we perceive his word has a level of importance to it.

But what is most important is how God views me.

What is most important is what God thinks of me.

God says, I'm going to testify about you.

Because I'm God.

I'm the divine one.

And not just any divine one.

I am your God.

I'm the one that you have gathered here to worship.

I'm the one that you have covenanted with.

I'm the one that you have said, you are my God, and I'm going to follow you.

I'm going to do what you say.

I'm going to listen to your word, etc., etc.

etc.

So God says, okay, let's open the book.

Let's compare your heart to everything.

That I've read.

Compare your your heart to everything that I've said, and what does he say?

No, I'm not here to rebuke you for your sacrifice.

Because you you're always offering burnt offerings.

They go on all the time.

I'm not here to accept a bull from your house or the goats from your for every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills, I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.

You know, for years I took that passage out of context.

Especially as a college student.

I knew that my father owned a cattle on a thousand hills, and I told him every once in a while, Lord, you need to sell a few cows.

I need some money.

Seriously, I did that.

This is God speaking.

This is God speaking against his gathered people.

Look at what he says.

First thing he says is, I don't need your things.

I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your foals.

I don't need your things.

Every beast of the forest is mine.

Why would I need everything, anything, if I already have everything?

So whenever you come to my house and you act as though you I need you, or I need your things, or I need your worship, you're not understanding who I am.

I don't need your things.

And that's not all of it.

In verse 11, he says, I don't need anything.

I know all the birds on the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.

He says it doesn't matter.

If it moves, it's mine.

We have a five-year-old and an almost two-year-old.

Everything is theirs.

Especially if somebody else has it.

God says, No, you don't understand.

It's all mine.

I own everything.

It's all mine.

If I made it, it's mine.

So I don't need it back from you.

I don't even need you.

God's saying, this is not about you.

You're gathered here in worship on a regular basis.

You go through your routine, you go through your ritual, you do the same thing in and out every week.

This is not about you, this is about me.

God's speaking to his people.

He says, I don't need your things, I don't need anything.

In fact, if we go on to verse 12, he says, in fact, I don't need to be fed.

I don't need to be fed.

If I were hungry, I would not tell you.

Everything's mine.

A little background here that we need to understand.

Israel is surrounded by pagan religious cultures.

In pagan religious cultures, it was believed that people needed to offer animal sacrifices.

They needed to offer grain sacrifices.

They needed to offer drink sacrifices of wine, because if they didn't, the gods would starve.

And if the gods starved, what did that mean for your life?

Not good things.

In fact, there are archaeological inscriptions that describe the gods coming and attacking a sacrifice like flies on a carcass because they've been starved by their people.

That's what was commonly believed.

And so God says, listen, I'm not like all of those people around you that think you need to feed the gods.

I'm not here for you, you're here for me.

Let's get this all straightened out.

It's not about your ritual, it's not about your sacrifices.

They go on all the time.

I don't need to eat it.

If I was hungry, I wouldn't even let you know.

Because everything's mine.

It's mine.

So then, verse 13, God asks the question.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?

That's a fascinating transition.

God starts out by just laying out one truth after another after another, and then all of a sudden he stops and he asks this question.

Do you really think that I eat?

Do you really think that I need to have your sacrifices day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, because I somehow need to be fed so that I can survive?

Why does God ask that question?

Because the answer is, of course, no.

God doesn't need to be fed.

We know that.

God's people know that.

So what's the point of the question?

Well, the question is that God's challenging our perceptions of who he is.

And he says to his people in this song, he says to his people, today, do you really know me?

Do you really understand who I am?

Do you understand what I'm like?

Do you understand what I'm about?

Because all along you're thinking, we've got to bring these sacrifices so that God can eat.

Well, wait a minute, if that's what you think, then do you really know me?

Do you really know me?

Don't don't let this just fly right on by you without stopping and thinking about it.

We don't participate in animal sacrifices.

But the kinds of things that we do day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year in worshiping our God, do they somehow lead us to some perception of God that is false?

That is not true.

Do we really know our God?

See, these are people, this category of people that he's addressing here are people who participate in the ceremonial outward association of God's gathered people in order to obtain God's favor.

They think, I need to go to church so that God will listen to my prayers, I need to give an offering so that God will do this, I need to do this so that God will respond to me.

I need to volunteer my time and my efforts and my services so that God will be happy with me.

And so we show up for all the services, we participate in the prayer times, we volunteer whenever possible, we give regularly and we expect God to be good to us, we expect God to answer our prayers, and it goes on and on and on.

See, friends, we we often harbor subtle sins like this that point to the truth that we we sometimes act as though God does for us because we do for him.

And in doing that, we seek to manipulate God, whether it's by thought, whether it's even by an unexpressed expectation, God says to us, I don't need you.

I don't need what you bring, I don't need what you give, and I don't owe you anything.

Commentator Gerald Wilson says it well.

Sacrifice fills no lack in the creator of the world.

Creator of the world doesn't have a lack.

So it can't fill anything, doesn't fill a void.

Sacrifice fills no lack in the creator of the world to whom all belongs.

Sacrifice is for the benefit of the offerer.

When we worship our God and whatever that looks like, it is not for his benefit, it is for our benefit.

Why?

Listen to what he says.

It is a reflection of the attitude of the offerer.

See, when you truly come to God rightly, it's about what's going on in your heart, not about what it looks like on the outside.

There's a danger in simply going through the motions, doing the same thing all the time.

So God, in the end, addresses these people in verse 14, and he calls for repentance.

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High.

Well, isn't that what they've been doing?

They've been offering sacrifices, will keep going on.

And call upon me in the day of trouble.

Call upon me in the day of trouble.

See, here's where we begin to really get where this idea of thanksgiving is going in this song.

God calls for his people, those who claim to be his people, to repent, to respond to him in genuine dependence.

He says, yes, call upon me in the day of trouble.

Why?

Because I'm the only one that can really help you.

This is not about what you do for me.

This is about what I do for you.

And until you get that right, you don't understand who I am.

Calling upon Him as your true hope displays dependence.

And when we display dependence, we give genuine thanks to God.

Gerald Wilson again says, right worship.

Right worship consists in acknowledging that we have nothing to bring to the creator of the universe that is not already his.

Added to this is the realization that God does not need our sacrifices, but they are entirely for our own benefit to open up our hearts and help us understand how we are relating to our God?

Do we really perceive him rightly?

Do we understand him rightly, or are we just using him as some genie in a bottle that we can twist and manipulate?

Is there any sense in which you think that God will do something for you because you show up at church regularly?

Is there any sense in which you think that God is pleased with you because of how you've decided to do worship?

Do you think God will respond to you because you've decided in the midst of COVID-19 to worship in person at church?

Let's flip that around.

Do you think that God will respond to you because you've decided to remain home to worship?

See, it's about our hearts.

What is our attitude toward our God?

He doesn't need us.

He doesn't need our worship.

Doesn't mean don't do it.

It's about the heart of our worship.

What would God say about your worship?

Because here God is presented as the judge of his people gathered together.

He says, some of you don't have the right heart.

Friends, it gets worse.

It gets worse.

In verse 16, God begins to address the second category of people.

And this group of people are those who are the hypocrites.

And here God speaks to judge the heart of people who are hypocrites.

He says, I'm coming and I'm going to speak, not to encourage you in your sin, not to make sure that you're going to continue on doing everything and to build you up on where you are.

No, I'm here to judge you.

Remember, these are the covenant people gathered together.

Did you know that a majority of people who trust in Christ do so in church?

Now, the church, the true church, capital C, is the gathering of God's people.

But those who come to church include many people who do not truly belong to him.

They think they do.

But they don't.

There are many in churches who do not have new hearts, and so God speaks and he says to the wicked, what right?

What right have you to talk about my Bible?

What right?

What right do you have to take my covenant on your lips to claim my name?

You hate discipline, you cast my words behind you.

If you see a thief, you're pleased with him, you keep company with adulterers.

See, God again, just like he did with the first group, he starts listing out statements.

He says, this is what you do, this is what you think, this is how you are.

So the first group, it was all of those elements of, I don't need your things, I don't need anything, I don't need to be fed, do you really know me?

And so now God comes to the hypocrites and he says, You don't think that you need to listen.

What right have you to take my words on your lips when you don't do what I say?

What right have you to claim to belong to me when this is how you live?

You you think you already know this, you think you know my statutes, you think you know my covenant.

Verse 17.

It says, You don't think that you need to follow my word in obedience.

You hate discipline.

You you take my words and you cast them behind you as if they're nothing.

Wonderful imaginative image here from the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah wrote out a scroll, actually, he he dictated it to his servant who wrote it all down, and then he told his servant, Take it to the king of Judah.

Have it read.

Well, the king of Judah was at his winter palace.

It was winter, and so he had a fire burning, and as a column of the scroll was read to the king, he took his knife and he ripped it right off and he tossed it into the fire.

God says, you don't think that you need to listen to what I have to say and to do it.

You don't think in verse 18, 19, 20, says, you don't think that you need to love others.

You don't think that you need to love others.

Sorry up there in the booth, I can't make that that work with my remote today.

You don't think you need to love others.

Listen, listen again to Jeremiah chapter 7 of verse 9.

Jeremiah 7 · chapter mention

God says to his people, will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say, We are delivered?

Only to go on doing all these abominations?

God says, You have the gall to live like this, then to come to my house and say that you belong to me and I'm gonna rescue you.

Well, you've got something else coming.

You think you're my people?

Listen up.

That's why God says in verse 21, you thought I was like you.

All the while I was silent, I wasn't speaking, you misunderstood that, and you thought, God's happy with me.

God's encouraging me.

God's like me.

So this is a foundational sin to those who are comfortable with God but are in reality hypocrites.

They think God is approving of them.

They think God is like them.

So, what does God say?

He says, You've done these things, and I've been silent.

And in my silence, you thought that I approved of you.

You thought that I was just like you and I participated in these things, and I was right along with you.

Well, shut up and listen while I tell you the truth, says the judge to his people.

And so he goes on, and he, just like the first group, he calls them to repentance.

Now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

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.

See, there's that statement repeated.

Verse 15, I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.

It's not about you, it's not about us.

It's about responding to God with the right heart, which glorifies him.

He calls for repentance.

You who forget God need to remember, he says.

Remembering is a key element in thanksgiving.

You cannot give thanks if you don't remember.

God says to his gathered people, some of you have forgotten me.

If you're forgetting me, then you're not remembering.

If you're not remembering, then you're not offering thanksgiving with the right heart.

Thanksgiving from the heart is seen in genuine dependence.

Mark this, lest I tear you apart and there be none to deliver.

Listen, you need to trust me so that I deliver you.

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice, not in a hypocritical way, but in remembrance and genuine dependence on God's provision, will see the salvation of God.

What does that look like for a hypocrite?

Verse 23, the one who orders his way rightly.

See, the hypocrite comes and gathers with God's people and says all the right things and looks all the right way, and then goes and does something differently, and God says, No.

If you have a right heart, then you're gonna come and you're gonna look the right way, and you're gonna leave and you're gonna do the right thing.

Because you depend on me.

And that is the right sacrifice of thanksgiving.

And we need to end here with verse 23.

But to do that, I want to go back to verse 22.

And we need to understand that as God's people today, just as God's people in Asaph's time, just as God's people at Mount Sinai, we need to see the salvation of our God.

We need to do that so that he doesn't tear us apart.

Look what he says.

Mark this then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart.

You need, my friends, to see the salvation of God so he doesn't tear you to pieces.

Now, at this point, neither group, neither the ritualistic group or the hypocritical group is beyond the salvation of God.

They're not beyond redemption, they're not beyond reconciliation and forgiveness.

They're both given the opportunity to remember, right?

Don't forget, remember.

And as they do this, as Asaph writes this hymn and the people are singing it, they're most likely remembering their Bible.

They're remembering that a failure to remember leads to rejecting God.

A failure to remember and rejecting God leads to destruction.

They might remember Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 19, where Moses said, If you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today, you shall surely perish.

Deuteronomy 8:19

The end of the book of Deuteronomy, right before Moses died.

He spoke to Israel and he said in Deuteronomy 32, you were unmindful.

You weren't thinking, you were forgetful of the rock, capital R that bore you.

And you forgot the God who gave you birth.

Talk about dependence.

The Lord saw it and turned away from you.

When Israel reached the promised land in Judges chapter 2, it says, They abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers.

Judges 2 · chapter mention

That's why the psalmist would say in Psalm 78, verse 10, they did not keep God's covenant, but they refused to walk according to his law, they forgot his works, they forgot all the wonders that he had shown them.

Psalms 78:10

And so Asaph feels driven to say.

To God's people gathered together to worship.

Watch out.

Why?

Because your God comes roaring.

Our God comes, verse 3, he does not keep silent.

Before him is a devouring fire.

Somebody's called this a thunderstorm theophany.

God is appearing in the worst kind of storm that you could ever imagine, and he's doing so to talk to you.

We need to hear what God has to say because he's testifying against our hearts.

We need to hear what God has to say because he's a righteous judge.

And as a righteous judge, he threatens to tear us apart.

That word's the same word used in the book of Jonah.

Of the ships from Tarshish that Jonah was on in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, where it says they were threatening to break apart.

God says, I'm threatening to tear you apart.

Why?

Because you don't rightly depend on me.

Whether it's going through the motions, whether it's being hypocritical, whether it's believing that you can manipulate God, whatever the situation might be, there is no way for you to begin this week of thanksgiving and to offer genuine thanksgiving, genuine sacrifices of thanksgiving to your God if you cannot do it in utter dependence upon Him and Him alone.

Mark Futado writes, the purest form of worship without gratitude.

If you come and you worship perfectly and you do not do so with thanksgiving, it evokes divine judgment because gratitude comes from an attitude of dependence.

So flowing out of grateful worship is a willingness to depend on God in times of trouble.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God has come as a judge.

And he speaks.

Why?

Because he is your praise.

He is your God who has done for you all of these amazing, great, and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.

So don't forget.

Remember everything that your God has done.

And as you remember what your God has done for you, make that move you to utter dependence upon Him, because that's when you return to Him, the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Lord Jesus, we confess to you.

We so often fail.

Heal our hearts, heal our souls so that we might give praise to you genuinely.

Lord, sometimes it means that you have to take away from us the things in which we're trusting.

Sometimes it means that you have to show us how utterly unworthy of our trust the things in our world are.

May we see you in all of your glory, even to the point of being fearful of you, so that we might see your salvation.

Lord, give us hearts full of thanksgiving, so we trust in you.

In the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

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