Do Not Give To God

In January 2004 Bruce Ware had come to MBI from Southern Seminary to preach at our chapel. His teaching on worship from Psalm 50 left an impression. He arrested my attention saying, “It is blasphemous to say that God created people because He was lonely.” That in fact was something I was told when I was a young Christian. I don’t think I would have said it that same way at the time I heard Ware’s message, but I would have said that God created us for fellowship. For me that statement would have included the idea that God benefited from our company. The problem with this will become evident as we continue.

In verses 1-6 God summons the whole world for judgment. Two groups are singled out. In verses 7-15 He deals with “those who love religious rites but neglect thankfulness, obedience and prayer.” Then in verses 16-21 “those who recite the law but do not keep it.” Verses 22 and 23 end the psalm with a message of hope. There is instruction for both groups should they choose to reform.

Bruce Ware focused on verse 9-15 in which God says, “I shall take no young bull out of your house nor male goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High; call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.”

Wow! The text still leaves an impression. Ware summed up verses 9-13 saying, “Israel’s wrong attitude of worship was to worship as if they were meeting God’s need, as was done for ANE gods.” We do not benefit God. John Piper has a heading in the chapter on Worship in Desiring God that reads, “Beware of Giving to God.” He says, “We strive against God’s all-sufficient glory if we think we can become a means to His end without making joy in Him our end. . . . the one who actually sets himself above God is the person who presumes to come to God to give rather than to get.”

God said in verse 12 that He, who owns everything, would not come to us, who are we, with any need. Now I would say it is blasphemous to suggest that God has any needs, but we speak hypothetically for the sake of instruction. Our resources are pitiful compared to His, and what we have has come from Him anyway! As John Piper says, “the giver gets the glory.” Verse 15 bears repeating in this regard, “Call on Me, I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.” We are the needy ones! He rescues us and we honor Him. Beware of serving God. “He is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.”

I cannot help but think of another text, Acts 17:24-25, “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.”

God needs nothing. He has never been lonely for there has always been perfect fellowship among the Trinity. God does find delight in His creation, and He will no doubt have joy over us when we come to Him to be filled, but do not think He needs us. We need fellowship with God, not the other way around. What an immense and awesome God! As we come to see Him more and more as He is, the more joy we find in coming to Him.

The psalm closes, “Now consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver. He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; and to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God.” Do not come to God to give, rather come thankful for what He gives. Obey what God commands. “Samuel said, ‘Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22).