Sacrifice
Caleb Johnson, Speaker
Psalms 50 | August 31, 2025 - Sunday Evening,
Good evening. Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 50. Psalm 50. As you turn there let me pray once more for our time.
Heavenly Father, unless your Holy Spirit accompanies the preaching of your Word to give it its affect it will be to us a dead letter. The letter kills, but the spirit gives life. So, Lord we ask that you would attend now to the preaching of the Word and in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Psalm 50. A couple things to know before we read. First, you can see from the superscription this is a Psalm of Asaph. Asaph has 12 Psalms to his name in the entire Psalter, all 150 of them, 12 of them are his, 11 of Asaph’s Psalms are all in Book 3, so 73 through 83 are Asaph. This is the only Asaph Psalm that is not in Book 3, it’s here in Book 2 right next to Psalm 51. I think there’s a reason for that which we will circle back around to. Second thing to keep in mind, Psalm 50 is a prejudgement judgement day scene for Israel. Asaph, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes an account for us and for Israel about how Israel would do if God’s judgment were to come upon them at that time. That’s what Psalm 50 is about. And there’s one main theme in Asaph’s Psalm here that levels his critique at Isreal and it’s the theme of sacrifice. It’s mentioned four times in your Bibles, follow along as I read. This is the Word of the Lord.
Psalm 50, the Psalm of Asaph.
The Mighty One, God the Lord,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
3 Our God comes; he does not keep silence;[a]
before him is a devouring fire,
around him a mighty tempest.
4 He calls to the heavens above
and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
5 “Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
6 The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge! Selah
7 “Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
O Israel, I will testify against you.
I am God, your God.
8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
your burnt offerings are continually before me.
9 I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,[b]
and perform your vows to the Most High,
15 and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
16 But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to recite my statutes
or take my covenant on your lips?
17 For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you.
18 If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
and you keep company with adulterers.
19 “You give your mouth free rein for evil,
and your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother’s son.
21 These things you have done, and I have been silent;
you thought that I[c] was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
22 “Mark this, then, you who forget God,
lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
23 The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!”
What is the value of a test run? If you had to ask a professional athlete or a professional in any vocation for that matter, I think the answer would be the value of a test run is high, it’s very important. You’ve got the fundamentals down, good. You’ve practiced, even better. You’ve made preparations, you’ve thought ahead, superb. But if you really want to be prepared for game day, for the recital, the sales meeting, the presentation, the interview, the lesson, there’s nothing like a test run to prepare you for show time. Every coach knows the value of a scrimmage. College football season is upon us, it’s in the air, and there’s something about blowing the whistle from start to finish and just watching the thing, watching the scrimmage before the season to see where the gaps are in your team. They stand out like nothing else, like doing the fundamentals or practice don’t. There’s a lot of value in a test run and I think that Psalm 50 is kind of like a test run for Isreal in God’s coming to them to judge. It’s a dry run so to speak in the day of the Lord. Psalm 50 has four major sections. You’ve probably noticed them in your English Bibles, and they might even be stanzaed out accordingly.
First section God appears, verses 1-6. Notice the apocalyptic language in verse 3. “Our God comes. He does not keep silent. Before Him is devouring fire, a mighty tempest is around Him. God is coming and He is visiting His people for judgement.”
Second section, verses 7-15 is the first instantiation of this judgement. He is judging this class of people which is called my people. “O Israel, I will testify against you.” You see that in verse 7. This is the religious class, not merely the Levites, but those who are pious in Isreal, those who attend to the sacrifice, the Lord has something to say to them.
The third section is verses 16-21. It’s another class of people that God levels this judgement, this critique against and it’s the wicked. Now there’s debate on who these people are. Some think that these are the surrounding nations, most believe that the wicked here are actually Israelites who are just utterly taken back by the surprising day of the Lord that is upon them. They clearly know something of the covenant, right, you see that in verse 16, second part of verse 16, “You take my covenant on your lips, the Lord says. You can’t even take my covenant on your lips”, which means they have some kind of category for Yahweh’s covenants. These are those who are not very pious, they are the non-pious group shall we say. Notice they’re not even keeping the second table of the law; they break three commandments in two verses. Look at verse 18. “You see a thief, you are pleased with him.” Eight commandment, “You keep company with adulterers.” Seventh commandment, “You give your mouth free reign for evil and your tongue frames deceit. Ninth commandment, there’s also hint of the fifth commandment in there. These are the people who are not even showing up for the sacrifices and God even had something to say to them, even a word of repentance and a word of encouragement even.
And then there’s the final section, verses 22-23, which closes it out. These are the parting charges that God has for the entire group. So, what is the purpose of Psalm 50? This is after all an intense scene, you weren’t expecting to close off the Lord’s Day this intense, but here we are, Psalm 50, there’s some good coming right around the corner with some good stuff, just stick around. But it should be understood that this is God’s kindest Isreal. As Derek Kidner writes, “This judgement scene is not for passing sentence, but for bringing truth to light and sinners to repentance.” I think this is part of the reason why I like this passage of scripture so much. It’s like getting Israel’s day of the Lord assessment form or like being able to look over the back of an inspector to see how they did, because you can’t help but read Psalm 50 and put yourself in their shoes, can you, because we are all going to stand before the Lord one day. What did Israel do, how did they do, and what can we learn from this Psalm. So, the outline for this evening is going to be simple, two questions, one, what’s the problem in Israel and two, what is God’s solution for His people? What is the problem and what is God’s solution. Simple outline.
So first, what is the problem? There’s multiple layers to the problem, I’m sure you can see. The first one is that of reliance or that of need. Look at the first two times the word sacrifice is used in Psalm 50. The first time it’s used is in verse 5. “Gather to me my faithful ones who made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” The sacrifices are a mark of God to his people. They look different than the surrounding nations, right, make a covenant with me by sacrifice. So, the people are actually set apart unto God visibly. So far, so good.
Now look at verse 8, the second instance. “Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you. Your burnt offerings are continually before me.” Not only are they marking out God’s people, they’re happening over and over again according to God’s commandments. It seems like the Levitical norm to me. There will come a time in Israel’s history when they will not offer the sacrifices, when they will cease doing it altogether or they will even just bring the lame animals or the non-first fruits of their crops to be offered to Lord as a sacrifice, but that’s not the problem here in verse 50 is it, they’re doing the sacrifice or at least this first section, this first class of people, they’re going about it the right way visibly aren’t they. We really start to see the problem with their sacrifices starting in verse 12. This is God speaking, “For if I were hungry I would not tell you for world and it’s fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bowls or do I drink the blood of goats?” Got some satire here. God is speaking in the first person, but you can’t help but think He is not really talking about Himself is He. What He’s saying when He says, “If I was hungry I would not tell you”, we’re not to build up any sort of theology proper around these statements, what we’re supposed to see is the way that Israel saw God, the way they were acting like they saw God. You think I’m hungry, is that it. You think I’m just waiting for these goats or these bulls as if whenever a priest slaughters the bull on the altar it’s transported to the heavenly realm and God is up there just waiting for this bull or this goat to pop up. I couldn’t help but think about the Jurassic Park scene when, you know, they’re driving those old Ford Explorers around the T-Rex exhibit and then the goat rises from the ground, there for the T-Rex to eat. Here God is speaking to His people with rich covenant satire, with the purpose to reveal and expose something in them. Not to insult them, but to convict them of their sin.
So, the first problem is God really needs this more than we do. That’s the attitude that the people of Israel are approaching the sacrifices. This is more for God than it is for me. As we know, Acts 17:25, “God is not served by human hands as if He needed anything.” James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift is from above. God does not change like the shifting shadows.” If there’s anyone who is changing in God’s realm it is you and me, because every good and perfect gift comes from above. He is the one who does not change, so therefore He is the only one who can give us true blessing.
Perhaps verse 21 sheds light on what’s going on, on how they see God in Psalm 50. Look at verse 21. “These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself, you thought I was one like you.” It’s now a question for us. Again, this is judgement day for Isreal, but no doubt we are in these shoes today. What about our sacrifices, what about our prayers, what about our praise, what about our worship. Can we make the same mistake when it comes to worship, I wonder. I’m not asking if you think we are capable of going through the motions, I think we would all agree that that’s certainly possible and we’re guilty of that. What I’m asking, I think it’s the question that Psalm 50 really puts in front of us, is do you think that when we do we run the risk of assuming that posture of the Israelites in Psalm 50, that is God needs this worship, this prayer, this praise. God needs this more than I do. I should really just give Him one. There’s another layer to their misunderstanding and we see that in the next two instances of the word sacrifice.
Look at verse 14. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High.” Verse 22, “Mark this then you who forget God lest I tear you apart and there would be none to deliver. The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me” These second two times, as you can see, sacrifice is linked with thanksgiving. That is true sacrifice. Derek Kidner writes, “The giving is on His side and ours is the receiving. Even in our sacrifices to God the giving is not on our side, it is the receiving.”
I think there’s one question that this text calls us to consider as we move forward, as we think about this judgement. Why are the sacrifices of Israel not enough? It’s worth asking because if God truly doesn’t need anything, and if nothing outside of Him can be added to Him, then what is wrong with halfhearted worship. It seems like God is being nitpicky, it seems like why would you even care. If nothing can be added to God, then why even bother? There’s another doctrine that we need to keep in mind here as we think through that question. If God does not truly gain anything in Himself, if nothing is added to Him by our worship, whether true worship or whether false worship, if He is outside of that, if nothing truly affects his being then why would He demand it? The answer is because as we know, God is love, He’s not just a force, He’s not just a resource machine, He is not a resource machine, but He is a giver because God is love so that helps us answer that question, right, what is wrong with halfhearted sacrifices, because that’s not the highest thing that you, worshiper, and I have to offer to our God. He wants you; He wants a whole sacrifice. He wants your heart and it turns out that if we give half of our heart to God and the other half to some worldly good, we do not gain two different halves, but we lose everything. Thankfulness then is a matter of the heart and what better place to look at this subject of the heart than the Samuel narratives.
We’re going to check out the Samuel narratives for a moment. Turn with me to 1 Samuel:16. It’s right there in the middle of 1 Samuel. I led a men’s Bible study a while back, a couple years ago. It actually took a few years to get through the Bible study. We went though 1 and 2 Samuel, and we used Dale Ralph Davis’s commentary, it was really good, really insightful and one thing he points out is the main point of 1 Samuel is this very thing that we’re talking about which is the heart. You’ve all heard this verse before. Chapter 16, starting in verse 6. “When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him.” Verse 7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature because I rejected him for the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on outward appearances, but the Lord looks on the heart.” And this will be the theme for the rest of the Samuel narrative. Certainly for 1 Samuel in the person of David who is this man after God’s own heart. What you may not know is that this isn’t the first time heart, though the theme of 1 Samuel, this is not the first time that heart is mentioned in 1 Samuel. Flip back over to 1 Samuel chapter 13 for me really quick. 1 Samuel 13. The first time that the heart is brought up in substance in 1 Samuel is not with reference to David, it’s with reference to who, Saul.
Look at verse 14. Context, Saul is waiting for Samuel at Gilgal. He is supposed to hold on Samuel is going to get there, Samuel is going to do the sacrifice and then they will be emboldened to take on the Philistines, but Saul is supposed to wait, he’s not supposed to do the sacrifice. Look at verse 14. “But now your kingdom shall not continue.” And why will it not continue? Well Saul wanted to expedite the process, he didn’t wanna wait for Samuel to make that sacrifice, he went ahead, and did it because Saul is very a pragmatic character. “The Lord has sought a man”, verse 14, “After his own heart and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” Now why do I bring this up, why are we in 1 Samuel? 1 Samuel is all about the heart. It turns out the context of the heart is started in this section about Saul, and would you look at the ESV header of that section in your Bibles of chapter 13, what does it say? It’s about Saul’s unlawful sacrifice. Saul will again in chapter 15, will do almost the same thing after beating the Amalekites. He will, inst4ad of putting everything to destruction, he will keep the cattle, he will even say, well we saved it for, what, the sacrifice, the people saved it for the sacrifice, but again in that moment Samuel looks at Saul and he says, “The Lord would rather you obey, to obey is better than sacrifice, then the fat of rams.” So, disobedience and a lack of the heart is often paired with this theme of sacrifice in the Old Testament.
So, it turns out that Psalm 50 is not the only time when God’s people failed to connect that dot between sacrifice that they’re supposed to do regularly and the heart. It’s supposed to go somewhere, it’s supposed to be a teacher to them to the heart. It’s not supposed to be done rotely, it’s supposed to affect them. Isreal tends to get a C minus in sacrifice because they just don’t get it.
Okay, so Psalm 50. There’s an issue here with the need. They think that God is the one who was needy. As a result, there’s a lack of thankfulness and thankfulness is a matter of the heart. It seems like there is no solution, but there is in fact a solution. What is God’s solution for His people in Psalm 50? I wonder if you caught it. He doesn’t just tell them to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. He doesn’t just tell them to be thankful. Now the Bible does often tell us things that are simple like that. Those are often enough for us, often we just need to be reminded we’re not all that deep all the time, maybe we just need to be reminded, be thankful, but he actually gives a deeper solution in Psalm 50 to this lack of thankfulness to the heart just not being present. Did you notice the sneaky comfort that he gives them in verse 15?
Starting in verse 14 this is the third instance of sacrifice. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High”, and what does he say, “And call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.” The solution here is not what you might find on an inspection form. This is indeed a sort of mock inspection on Isreal, a mock day of the Lord, but this is not the kind of solution that says, make an adjustment here, move around some things here, make a few tweaks with this and you’ll be alright. He says something very, very different. It’s more foundational, it’s more tectonic than that. “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you.” I thought this was about Israel, why is God bringing Himself into this as the player. It’s as if that He is saying, you have a problem that’s deeper than any quick fix so remember these words, remember these words, call upon me in the day of trouble. Remember them now but also remember them later because there will come a day when you need my help. Again, the giving. Do you see this in verse 15, the giving is on God’s side and ours is the receiving.
I mentioned before that Psalm 50 is uniquely placed. The only Asaph Psalm that’s in Book 2 and it turns out Psalm 50 is not the only Psalm that talks about sacrifice, 50 and 51 are actually a conceptual pair, that both speak to this subject. Follow along as I read just a few bits and pieces from Psalm 51. Of David when Nathan the Prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Verse 1, “Have mercy on me O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin.” You notice who is the one making the adjustments here. “Purge me with hyssop”, verse 7, “Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me”, 14, “Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God.” These are all calls for God to act on David’s behalf. The rolls have been switched. It’s about sacrifice, but now the actor is on God. Verse 15, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight”, in what, “Won’t delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with the burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not despise. Do Good to Zion in your pleasure, build up the walls of Jerusalem, speaking to God, then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings, then will bulls be offered on your altar.”
Notice David doesn’t say that the altars of the forum, it’s true the substance of our worship, the substance of the sacrifice was going to be the heart of the people, saying that we are the ones who need this, and God is not the one who is needy. The substance is thanksgiving, but he doesn’t get rid of the forum, he doesn’t say no more worship, no more offerings, he just says, we need to get the right things down. David, the man after God’s heart understands what the Israelites don’t in Psalm 50. What is the difference between these two parties, David is broken, David is in need of the Lord. That’s the key element here that separates the sacrifices from 51 and 50, the brokenness. In Allen Levi’s, Theo of Golden, one of the characters named Asher Glissen says to the elderly protagonist, Theo I appreciate that you are a sensitive man, you have a tender heart. Not tender Asher, broken, but I realize more and more that it is a gift. Brokenness is a gift from God. It shows us our need, that God must act on our own behalf. So if we’re gonna learn anything from Psalm 50 and Psalm 51, this tale of two Psalms, it turns out that we are the ones who need the sacrifice more than God does and He gave it to us in His son.
In just a few seconds we’re gonna sing one of my favorite hymns, Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness. Here’s one verse, “Bold shall I stand in thy great day for who aught to my charge shall lay? Fully absolved through these I am, from sin and fear, from guilt and shame.” Again, as Derek Kidner says, “The giving is on God’s side and ours is the receiving in all of our sacrifices for Him.” Let’s pray.
Lord, we thank you for your sacrifice on our behalf. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. Would you mold us, would you change us after your likeness that our sacrifices and praise of prayer and of worship would be honoring to you because a broken and a contrite heart Lord you will not despise. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
