Heartless Worship
The worship of God is a privilege for God’s people. Too often we forget this fact and do not honour God as He should be honoured. Our worship is unacceptable when it comes from a wrong heart. Religious acts performed correctly without the right heart do not please God. God was not pleased with the rightly offered sacrifices of Israel, because they did not flow out of humble and contrite heart. Psalm 50 is instructive in that it gives us a picture of unacceptable worship of God.
This Psalm begins with the picture of a courtroom with God as Judge (50:1-6). He has summoned the earth and the heavens to be witnesses against His covenant people (50:4-5). He condemns His people first of all, for their heartless worship. They were worshipping God in the right way, as He prescribed in His word (50:8). Yet, they wrongly believed that God needed their sacrifices (50:9-13). God had prescribed sacrifices as a means of dealing with their continual sin, so that they could maintain their fellowship with Him. The animal sacrifice was not what God desired, He wanted them wholeheartedly!
Brethren, God calls His people to worship Him with a grateful heart (50:14). A sacrifice of Thanksgiving was public praise that acknowledged God’s provision and care from a heart of faith (50:14). They were acknowledging that they needed God, and that He was graciously providing for them and protecting them (50:15). Worship must come from the heart, a product of living faith. Brethren, worship that is acceptable to God, is to worship in spirit and in truth with the right heart (John 4:22-24). We worship Jesus Christ out of a grateful and humble heart, offering our total selves to Him as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1).