Thanksgiving 2019/2022

Living a life of Thanksgiving

Psalm 100:1–5 NKJV

1 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing. 3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. 4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. 5 For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.

Intro: We just celebrated Thanksgiving. A special day of giving thanks. We see a lot of people telling of what they are thankful for. This is good, but as Christians we should live a life of Thanksgiving.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJV

18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

a. You don’t have to be thankful for something bad, but can be thankful through it.

1. A COMMAND TO SHOUT

Psalm 100:1 NKJV

1 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!

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Make a joyful noise KJV: HW 1. raise a shout. 2. give a blast with clarion or horn. 3. Sound the alarm.

We are commanded to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. That means everyone “all you lands” “all the earth”

A COMMAND TO SHOUT. But we are to do it joyfully.

a. We don’t have a problem in the world shouting to the top of our lungs for our favorite sports team but when it comes to giving God praise we become silent.

b. It’s ok to do more than just sit there and sing along while we are worshipping our Lord and Savior.

It’s ok to shout out “Amen, Glory, or Hallelujah!” when soaking in the Word of God.

c. Now I understand the need for reverence before our God, and showing Him the respect that He deserves, but He Himself tells us that there is a time to “make a joyful shout to the LORD!”

d. Think about what Jesus has done for me on the Cross and through His Resurrection, that is something worth shouting about.

e. Think about how His has blessed you during your life, that is something worth shouting about.

“all you lands!”“All the earth” – this command to shout goes out to the entire world, who should acknowledge the Lord because of what He has done for His people. The day will come, as Paul writes in

Philippians 2:10–11 NKJV

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

f. When we make a joyful noise (shout to the Lord) this is what we are doing. One day, everyone who has denied the name of the Lord, will confess His name. I think it may be more crying then joyful.

j. We can make a joyful noise through singing, praising, praying. Through our thankfulness.

Psalm 100:2 NKJV

2 Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.

2. A COMMAND TO SERVE

1. We are told here to “Serve the LORD with gladness!” If the presence of the Lord makes us joyful, then so should serving Him make us happy. It’s only when we stop taking pleasure in serving the Lord that it seems like a chore and a burden to do so.

Serve: HW for serve (abad)To work, to toil, to worship.

a. We serve the Lord in different ways. Mow the grass, work kitchen, teach Sunday School, give tithe, give above, sing in the choir, play an instrument, work the sound system.

But I have to wonder, are we serving with gladness?

Gladness: Joy, jubilation. To be filled with joy.

b. Are there times when you serve the Lord because its what you are suppose to do? I feel that way sometimes.

c. To take it a step further, there are times when serving is the last thing you feel like doing. And it’s during those times when our attitude is the opposite of gladness and yet we serve, but I do it unwillingly.

d. If we are not serving with a glad heart you are not pleasing God. We have to make sure we are not just playing church and putting on a show just to please other people because let me tell you something…it’s not pleasing to God.

e. While we may be able to fool everyone else around us, He sees the true nature of our heart. And God’s opinion of of us and our service is the only one that matters!

f. So then, how do we learn to serve with gladness? I think the secret is in reminding ourselves daily just why it is that we serve in the first place.

We serve, not because it is our duty (even though it is our duty), and not because we are commanded to (even though we are commanded to), we serve because we are grateful for what God has done, and has continued to do, and will do in the future on our behalf.

g. When we do that, it’s not that hard to serve with gladness, because our attitude has changed from a focus on ourselves, to a focus on God. We’re now serving, not because we have to, but because we want to, and that makes all the difference in the world.

3. A COMMAND TO SING

1. Singing to the Lord is something we are commanded to do. The Psalmist said: Come before his presence with singing!

a. This is why we sing at church. Not just to fill a time slot or go through the motions, but to praise the Lord. And doing that is very important to our growth as Christians.

Music is one of the ways in which we express our gladness, our joy, our praise. We don’t sing to create gladness, we sing to express it. It’s through our singing that we approach God.

b. From where I sit, I see you as you sing with gladness. Sing with praise, joy, gladness.

c. We do have to be careful though that we don’t fall into the trap of worshiping music rather than worshiping God.

You see, our corporate worship has to be an expression of our individual worship, or else it is unacceptable.

d. We can’t live anyway we want from Monday thru Saturday and then come to church on Sunday and just simply turn on the worship button. It doesn’t work that way.

4. A COMMAND TO SUBMIT

Psalm 100:3 NKJV

3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Know: To know, to be aware of, to understand, to know be experience.

1. Jesus Christ is God. Not Buddha, not Muhammad, and not many of the other false Gods that people worship today.

2. Secondly, we are the products of His hand. Not a product of senseless, mindless evolution. we are not here by chance.

We are here because God created us and He wants for us to know Him and He chooses to use us to share Him with those don’t. It’s that simple. You ever want to know the will of God? Well, there you have it.

3. This world that we live in tells us over and over again that the most important thing that we can do is to honor ourselves, to make ourselves number one, and to do everything we can to make sure that we are happy and comfortable.

But we are reminded here that God created us for His glory, not for our own.

4. Living a life of thanksgiving unto God involves first and foremost admitting and accepting the fact that He is God and we are not. He saved us; we can’t save ourselves.

a. We humbly and obediently submit to His Lordship. We are the sheep of His pasture. God is the Creator; we are His creations. God is the Father; we are His children. He takes care of us because He loves us!

b. When we remember these basic truths, the Christian life is not so hard after all. We have no other choice but to surrender our life to Him.

It’s only in complete surrender, knowing that God is in control and we are not, that we are able to live the Christian life. And it’s a lot simpler than we make it out to be.

5. A COMMAND TO SACRIFICE

Psalm 100:4 NKJV

4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

Psalm 100:4 AMP

4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and a thank offering and into His courts with praise! Be thankful and say so to Him, bless and affectionately praise His name!

Thanksgiving: Sacrifice:

1. The sacrifice that God demands of us is the sacrifice of praise. We can sacrifice our time, talents, and tithes, but our offering of worship to Him appears to be the most important of all.

Every believer, when coming into the presence of God, should do so with “thanksgiving” and “praise”.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 reminds us, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Psalm 100:5 NKJV

5 For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.

In the first 4 verses of this Psalm we are given commands:

A command to shout.

A command to sing.

A command to serve.

A command to submit.

A command to sacrifice.

Verse 5 tells us why: “for the Lord is good”.

a.When you are going through difficult times, I want you to know that God is on your side and always will be. He always loves us and is always good.

b. When it seems as though you can’t count on anyone else, you can count on Him. He is a God of infinite mercy and goodness. His love and faithfulness are unfailing through all time. He keeps His promises!

c. Everything else falls by the wayside, while His Truth marches on. His Word has stood the test of time for over 2,000 years and will continue to do so until the end of time as we know it.

d. It’s clear to me that this Psalm is calling us to look up, and see the blessings of God. Charles Spurgeon once said that “it is very questionable whether man can know himself until he knows his God.”

We learn who God is from studying His Word, and our passage tonight is a strong invitation to worship God freely, in whatever way the Holy Spirit guides you. We should be grateful that we have a place to worship.

e. Thankfulness is the opposite of selfishness. The selfish person says, "I deserve everything I have because I’ve worked hard for it”!

But the mature Christian realizes that life is a gift from God, and that the blessings of life come only from His bountiful hand. Those who have tried to be happy without God will at last find that true joy only comes through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.