Every now and again my computer starts playing up. Icons do not display properly. Programs freeze instead of running. Settings which have been applied do not seem to operate. My computer needs a reset. Restart it, install any updates lurking around, and things run better.
Psalm 50 calls God’s People to a relationship reset. Things are not as they ought to be. They need to renew their relationship with God. They need to return to grateful worship. And they need to return to faithful obedience. Through faithfully trusting in Christ, we too can enjoy a reset relationship with God every day.
Psalm 50 is a psalm of Asaph, who was a Levite who assisted with worship in the Temple (1 Chron. 6:39-43). The rest of his psalms appear later, but this has been grouped with the psalms of universal praise.
Psalm 50 starts from a universal place, with God calling all of the earth “from the rising of the sun to its setting” (v.1) to witness him renewing his covenant people. They see God coming like a devouring fire and mighty tempest, calling on heaven and earth to witness as he comes in judgement against his covenant community (vv.2-6).
Clearly something is not right. A relationship reset is needed. God calls for his faithful ones, “who made a covenant with me by sacrifice” to be gathered to him (v.5).
The first problem which God identifies is a lack of grateful worship. God testifies against his people, rebuking them not for their sacrifices which are consistently offered (vv.7-8), but because they are not offered from the heart.
Apparently, God’s People seem to have started thinking that their sacrifice met some need that God has. But God refused to accept their sacrifices (v.9), because God does not need anything from them. “Every best of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills” (v.10).
Even if God was hungry, he would not tell them anyway. He does not need it anyway, and everything belongs to him (vv.12-13).
Instead, God wants his people to offer “a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble” (vv.14-15). The problem is that the outward actions were not motivated by inner intent.
There was a lack of gratitude to God motivating the sacrifices. Gratitude springs from thanks and dependence. Both were lacking, and God wanted more than empty gestures, even as pure in form as they might have been.
Along with the lack of heart was a lack of obedience. The wicked were not “out there” in the world but instead were part of the covenant community, reciting God’s laws and taking “my covenant on your lips” (v.16). But despite the words, they treat his laws like garbage and live like thieves, adulterers, and slanderers (vv.17-20).
To make matters worse, they mistake God’s patience and silence as God not caring. They think that God is like them, uttering words but not really meaning what is said. But this is not true. Instead it is God’s patience. Eventually God’s patience runs out, and God brings a rebuke and a charge against the covenant breakers (v.21).
To them, God issues a warning before his judgement comes upon them (v.22). “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” (v.23). There is still time for a relationship reset.
What God seeks from his people in Asaph’s psalm is not the outwardly right words and the outwardly right actions. What God seeks from his people is word and deed motivated from the heart. If the relationship with God is to function, then grateful worship expressing dependence and faithful obedience are the necessary ingredients.
The heart of a covenant is a relationship, not a legal instrument. Our covenant relationship with God must be a relationship, not an empty structure that looks good on the outside but is falling apart inside. If that characterises our relationship with God, we too need a relationship reset. To install some updates and reboot our computers.
Falling into routine and leaving behind the heart is far too easy for us to do. The daily rhythms of devotion, and weekly rhythm of worship, can easily fall into formalism if we do not act from the heart. God loves us too much to let us slip into that mode unchecked, so he warns us through his Word to hit restart before our relationship with God starts glitching from his discipline.
We can restart because Jesus was always in faithful relationship with God. Jesus gratefully worshiped his Father, and was faithfully obedient even unto death. Through Jesus, we have the deliverance on which we can depend, and uncountable grateful worship to offer. With Jesus’ help, we can offer sacrifices that please God (Hebrews 13:15-16). And as we lack in faithful obedience, his faithfulness covers over our faithlessness.
Through Christ, we can always reset our relationship with God.