Psalm 19- Worship Like a Sadducee

Please read Psalm 19.  I will highlight a few verses rather than including the entire Psalm but please read the whole Psalm.

"The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of His hands."
Verse 1

"The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the Lord are sure
and altogether righteous."
Verse 9

"May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."
Verse 14

In Jewish culture there were two religious camps that had a basic difference.  The Pharisees, who believed in the afterlife, and the Sadducees, who did not.  I remember the difference this way; the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection so they were sad you see.

I have come to appreciate the Sadducees.  The Sadducees believed that there was nothing after this life.  Yet, they still worshipped and obeyed God.  I can honestly say that if I believed this life was it I would, at best, be a hedonist who attempted some morality.  I would eat, drink and be merry because this life is it.  As some kids in my youth group say, "Y.O.L.O." (you only live once).

But the Sadducees weren't hedonistic.  They obeyed God's commands and worshipped Him with all their hearts.

We need to worship like the Sadducees.  To explain why, here is an excerpt from A. W. Tozer's Whatever Happened to Worship? (A Call to True Worship)

"I once heard Dr. George D. Watson, one of the great Bible teachers of his generation, point out that men can have two kinds of love of God... the love of gratitude or the love of excellence.  He urged that we go on from gratefulness to a love of God just because He is God and because of the excellence of His character."

The Sadducees didn't worship God because He gave them eternal life; they worshipped God because He is God.  We need to do that.  Ask yourself this, "If God didn't offer me salvation would I still worship Him?" or ask like John Piper did, "If you could have all the goodness of heaven but God wasn't there would you want to go?"

Luckily these questions are somewhat of a moot point.  God does offer us salvation by faith and He will be the glowing sun of heaven.  But we should be able to worship God just for who He is.  In Isaiah and Revelation we see the elders, seraphs, the four living creatures and angels doing just that.  They haven't been saved by God, yet all day and night forever they say "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory."

Thank God for His blessings, but spend time this week worshipping God for His attributes.  Pick an attribute of God and worship Him for that today.