Life: God’s Version of
‘Take Your Child to Work’ Day

Week 4: Make Room for ‘Em All!

Psalm 50:1-15

†  I.H.S. †

May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ assure you of your place in His kingdom, even us others join our “going to work” with our Heavenly Father!

Siblings Joining us at Work!

As we’ve been using the parable of God taking you, His child to work with you, we come to this amazing passage from Psalm 50, A glorious passage that describes all of humanity gathered around God the Father, revealed in all His glory, as we see and feel and know and are united by His glorious love!

I think back to the first time I went to work with my dad, he was remodeling an apartment owned by one of my uncles. I think all I did that day was hold my dad’s hammer – but I was excited to go, having heard from brother all the great things he got to do. (My father was smart enough to not have me ever do those things!) And we were guaranteed to go to Howard Johnson’s on the way home and wreck our dinner by having and ice cream sundae, or a root beer float or a malt frappe.

I later understood my brother’s attitude, when my dad started bringing my sister, and leaving either Steve or I at home. There was a certain… jealousy, a certain territorialism, a certain attitude caused by having to share my dad’s attention. Heck the attitude still exists… a little.. notice who ended up with the hammer?

In fact, the attitude of my brother and I can be seen in the people of God in today’s Psalm—as people worshipped God, as they worked with Him, but they didn’t get what this was all about…just going through the motions.

It’s not our motions- but why?

As I looked at the judgment of God on His people, I was shocked to see them praised at first. God declares,

“O Israel: I am God, your God! 8  I have no complaint about your sacrifices or the burnt offerings you constantly offer.”

When it comes to Israel in the Old Testament, this is about the highest praise they received. They were always messing up worship and the sacrificial system—offering the wrong thing, or offering it to an idol instead of to God, doing for the first time the actions that God described to Moses and Abraham in Leviticus.

In other words, they done good!.

But they didn’t.

Like my brother and I, they went through the motions, but their heart wasn’t in it. It doesn’t take much imagination to see what the problem was,

“But I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens. 10  For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills. 11  I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine. 12  If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for all the world is mine and everything in it.”

It seems to me that they got the impression that they were doing all this work for God – that he couldn’t have a good life unless they did that part.

That would be like me thinking my role, holding my dad’s hammer, was essential to his work.

Imagine thinking that God would go hungry if Israel didn’t sacrifice the right animal and grill it the right way! Yep, God couldn’t run the universe without me!

As God shakes His head, and has to chastise His people once again.

It’s as naïve as me carrying the hammer and thinking that work as hard as my dad, and I absolutely necessary,,,,

No wonder Steve and I were irritated when we realized my sister could carry the hammer!

Be Thankful – and Let Me Be Your God!

Instead of making worship and the Christian life all about our work, all about all we “sacrifice” for God, look at what the Psalm focuses upon.

“14  Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. 15  Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.”

Three things we can do, and all of it is focused on Jesus.

First -be thankful. Realize that God wants to spend time with us, He wants to share in the great joy of seeing “all humanity” gather and realize His love that shines because it is glorious. Our lives are ones where we are aware of what God has done in saving us, and in what He is doing in our lives each day.

It’s like my brother and I, admiring the work my dad accomplished. We are there, and we see Him at work, as He crafts new lives from those once damaged by sin.

Second, we do what He asks us, to love, to forgive, to even sacrifice as God works through us, to summon all humanity. Basically, our vow is to hold the hammer, to keep God company, to learn from Him, as we learn on the job what it means to love…

And lastly, we bring God glory when we call on Him, as we get ourselves in trouble. That could be like me dropping my hammer, and shattering a floor tile, or my brother using the saw and not cutting the 2 by 4 straight. Or in our case, whatever commandment we broke—from having a false idol, to murdering and being unfaithful to our spouse or stealing or gossiping.

It is in those times, as God comforts and consoles us, as He fixes up the mess we’ve made our lives, as we cry out “Lord—have mercy!

It is then we see our Father smile, for at least this moment, we recognize our need to be there with Him, for Him to still minister to us, for Him to still forgive us, for the cross to have meaning, as our sin is forgiven because of another hammer, the one that nailed Jesus to the cross, that we might die with Him, and be raised to life with Him. As we are joined by people from all humanity…as we live with Him.

AMEN!