Slices
Prepare
What has God done for you? Beyond the gift of life in Jesus and the Spirit – what has God done for you, in your life? What difference has he made?
Bible passage
For the director of music. According to gittith. Of Asaph.
1 Sing for joy to God our strength;
shout aloud to the God of Jacob!
2 Begin the music, strike the tambourine,
play the melodious harp and lyre.
3 Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon,
and when the moon is full, on the day of our Feast;
4 this is a decree for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 When God went out against Egypt,
he established it as a statute for Joseph.
I heard an unknown voice say:
6 ‘I removed the burden from their shoulders;
their hands were set free from the basket.
7 In your distress you called and I rescued you,
I answered you out of a thundercloud;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.
8 Hear me, my people, and I will warn you –
if you would only listen to me, Israel!
9 You shall have no foreign god among you;
you shall not worship any god other than me.
10 I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
11 ‘But my people would not listen to me;
Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts
to follow their own devices.
13 ‘If my people would only listen to me,
if Israel would only follow my ways,
14 how quickly I would subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes!
15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last for ever.
16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat;
with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.’
Explore
Verses 1 and 2 make a great introduction to a service of praise and worship – maybe even for your service today! But what if ‘joy’ is the very last thing you feel in your heart? In this psalm, making joyful music comes not from emotion but willing obedience: it is a ‘decree’, an ‘ordinance’, a ‘statute’ (vs 4,5). But how can God command us to be joyful?
In the Bible joy has an object: God. And it is closely linked with the thankfulness of remembrance (vs 7–10). Biblical joy begins not with emotion but with choosing to rejoice in what God has done for us, no matter how we feel right now. Thank God, his gift of life depends not on how we feel day-to-day, but on what he has already done.
When I find myself in a funk, it is nearly always down to my stubborn heart (v 12). In those times, joy seems impossible to find. The answer? To listen, and to follow what God (and I) know is best for me (v 13). Oh, that it were as easy to do as to say!
Respond
However you feel today, can you rejoice in what God has done for you? If you’re finding it a challenge, try to listen to the words of Scripture – listen and follow them into the heart of God’s love for you.
Deeper Bible study
‘O Love that wilt not let me go, / I rest my weary soul in thee.’1
This is a psalm in two parts. It starts on a note of exuberant worship, with a call to celebrate a corporate festival marking God’s action in freeing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Then, from verse 6 onwards, our attention shifts. It’s as though we have been raised up, out of the throng of noisy praise, to a place where we can hear the very voice of God.
God’s words are extremely revealing. The difficulty he pinpoints is that the Israelites do not seem to understand, or even want to know, what they were saved for. Having been rescued from captivity in Egypt, they are refusing to listen to God (v 11). It’s as though they think they no longer have any need for him, now that he has ‘removed the burden from their shoulders’ (v 6); ‘would not submit to’, in verse 11, may be more accurately rendered ‘did not want’.2 God, however, longs for them to know the full nature of their salvation: to live with him as his people, to listen to him and to follow his ways (v 13). Do you hear the voice of God, longing for you to listen to him, yearning for you to enter into the fullness of life with him that Christ has given so much to obtain?
God lays out before the people a vision of what would happen if they ‘would only listen’ to him (vs 8,13). He would quickly ‘subdue their enemies’ (v 14) and they would be fed with ‘the finest of wheat’ and honey from wild bees (v 16), echoing the song of Moses.3 Ultimately, however, God wants his people to be motivated not by what he can do for them but simply by who he is: ‘I am the Lord your God’ (v 10).
Come before God in silence. Thank him for Jesus’ love and his sacrifice. Recommit yourself to listen to his voice.
1 George Matheson, 1842–1906 2 Beth Tanner, The Book of Psalms, Eerdmans, 2014, p639 3 Deut 32:13
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Exodus 23,24; Matthew 26
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for SU Taiwan as they aim to deliver the missionary vision: ‘Evangelism, Outreach, and Generational Heritage’ to Chinese Christians around the world. Currently they provide Daily Bible Notes and the children’s Sunday School textbook Yes! Bible which are used to serve hundreds of Chinese churches in 18 countries around the world.
