Thanksgiving as Worship

Introduction:

Over the past few weeks Pastor Tim has been speaking on worship and no sermon series on worship would be complete without a discussion of thanksgiving.

In fact, I believe that you could make the argument as an author has made that “The affection most associated in the Bible with worship is thanksgiving.”

So as we just finished celebrating thanksgiving I feel it would be appropriate for us to spend some time thinking through the relationship of thanksgiving to our worship.

Our text this morning is Psalm 100 which happens to be one of the most famous passages on thanksgiving. Follow along with me as I read. If you are using a pew bible it is on page 500.

Psalm 100 (ESV)

A Psalm for giving thanks.

1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!

3 Know that the Lord, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5 For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

I was reminded this week as I studied this Psalm of a struggle early in C.S. Lewis’ life. Before C.S. Lewis became a Christian one of his biggest stumbling blocks was the book of Psalms. C.S. Lewis could wrap his head around the idea of God demanding our obedience. But as he read the book of Psalms he couldn’t understand GOd’s demand for our praise.

He thought, “What kind of “God” is he who incessantly demands that his people tell him how great he is? Lewis was threatened with a picture of God in which he appeared as little better than a vain woman demanding compliments.”

Now when we read this Psalm we read it from the perspective of the human author. We don’t know who wrote this Psalm. It is believed that it may actually have been Moses. But when read it from the human authors perspective we miss some of the brashness of the psalm. Because although a human did write it we also understand that it was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so it was written by God.

Let me read it again from God’s perspective.

Make a joyful noise to me all the earth. Serve me with gladness. Come into my presence with singing. Enter my gates with thanksgiving and my courts with praise for me. Give thanks to me and bless my name.

You can see why C.S. Lewis may struggle with this you can see why he saw God as no better than a vain woman demanding compliments. Praise my name. Give thanks to me. Make a joyful noise to me.

No one speaks like that and if someone did speak like that you would run from their presence. You would despise being around them. You would not worship them.

But here we find God demanding our praise. Demanding our thankfulness. Why does he do that? Well we will get to that before we are done here this morning. But before we answer that let’s think though what it means to be grateful or thankful.

An author Scott Aniol makes the argument that gratitude first and foremost is not a feeling.

He says, “All true spiritual affections of worship have an object, and their object is always God. This is why true spiritual affections are different from what we often mean when we talk about our feelings. Feelings often have no object. When we experience only feelings apart from spiritual affections, our focus is not on any object; our focus is purely on ourselves and the feelings themselves. We love the feeling of love; we delight in the feeling of joy.

But the thing about the affection of gratitude is that there really is no feeling we associate with it. Think about it: what is the “feeling” of gratitude?”

There are times when we may feel happy but we don’t know why or there are times when we feel angry for no apparent reason. But you would never say I feel thankful but I don’t know why.

Therefore, gratitude always has an object. You are never really thankful for no apparent reason. You know why you are thankful because you are thankful for someone, or something, or some experience. There is always an object of your thankfulness.

And therefore if thankfulness always has an object than thankfulness can’t be artificially worked up.

If you are sad there are things you can do to make you feel happy. You could listen to music, watch something funny on tv or exercise. There are ways you can, turn that frown upside down, if you will.

But that doesn’t work for thankfulness. There has to be an object or a reason for why you are thankful.

And that brings us to the Psalm this morning. Because as I read this Psalm. I noticed that the author doesn’t mention anything about the readers circumstances. He doesn’t say thankful for the victory over your enemies or the food on your table. It just says Make a joyful noise to the Lord. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless His name.

I found that interesting because as a parent I have said on many occasions.

“You need to be thankful. Stop complaining and be grateful.”

And as you can imagine that rarely goes the way I expect it to in the moment. When you are upset and someone tells you to smile how does that normally make you feel? My guess is you don’t drop to your knees and make a joyful noise to the Lord.

But here the psalmist says right off the bat. Make a joyful noise to the Lord. Serve the Lord with a smile on your face and a song in your heart.

You might respond to that by saying, “Yea ok God. I’ll get right on that. I just found out I have cancer but I’ll make sure to be thankful.

Now if you read the Psalms you know that there are moment’s when the Psalmist cries out in despair. There is an entire book in the Old Testament dedicated to lament. Jesus wept and was troubled in HIs soul. So we know that God is not calling us to always be happy. We know it’s ok to struggle. We know it’s ok to feel sadness.

But this command to give thanks is repeated over and over again in the Bible. It’s one of the most repeated commands in scripture.

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 “16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Colossians 4:2 “2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”

Ephesians 5:20 “20 giving thanks always and for everything to God

Psalm 118:24 “24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

James 1:2 “2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,”

Verse after verse in scripture tells us to be thankful. Which again means that thankfulness is more than a feeling because our feelings are not this constant.

So although we know that there are times of sadness the general disposition of the Christian should be thankfulness. The most common attitude of God’s people should be gratitude. God calls us to be a thankful people.

In fact, listen to Romans 1:21 it says, “21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

So we see that an ungrateful heart will led to our minds becoming futile or worthless and our foolish hearts will be darkened.

It’s interesting we talk a lot about people falling away from God because of a sexual sin or something dramatic like that. But Paul seems to say it’s the ungrateful heart that leads us away from God. We could do each other a lot of good by reminding one another to be grateful.

So although we know that there are times of sadness the general disposition of the Christian should be thankfulness.

But listen to 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 again, “16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Rejoice always. Give thanks in all circumstances. This must mean that no matter what we are going through in life there is always, always a reason to be thankful.

That it’s possible to weep with a thankful heart. To lament with gratitude.

That is what the Christian is called to do. But you know I think we already knew that. We know we are supposed to be grateful. We know we are supposed to have joy. We know we are supposed to serve God with gladness. The commands in this Psalm are fairly simple and straight forward. They are not confusing.

You don’t need to listen to me tell you to be thankful. It doesn’t work when I tell my daughter to do it. It doesn’t work when someone tells me to do.

The commands are simple to understand. The problem is they seem at times impossible to fulfill.

We need a reason. An object to give thanks for at all times. When my life is falling apart I don’t need someone to tell me to be thankful I need someone to remind me why I can be.

And that’s the secret right there. The command to rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstance isn’t a command to follow but an opportunity to be taken.

Let me say that again, “The command to rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstance isn’t a command to follow but an opportunity to be taken. You can be thankful. You don’t have to be miserable. You don’t have to be ungrateful. You don’t have to be bitter and angry.

You can be thankful in our circumstances. You can as James says, “Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds.”

The command to enter his courts with thanksgiving isn’t a burden the Christian has to carry. When life is hard it can feel like another thing you are supposed to do. Like you are already struggling. You are already having a hard time but on top of all of that you also have to find a way to be thankful.

That’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that no matter how dark life gets how hard things become. No matter what trial comes your way it’s possible to be thankful.

Don’t you want that?? Don’t you want to be thankful? Wouldn’t you rather be thankful than angry? Would you rather be grateful than bitter? Wouldn’t you rather be happy than be sad?

I don’t want you to leave this morning feeling discouraged because you’re not thankful the way you should be. I want you to leave this morning knowing that no matter what comes you way this week thankfulness is always an option. That there is always always always something to be thankful for.

This morning we are going to look at three reasons why you can be thankful. But i first want to look at the negative. I want us to see the lie that steals our joy and robs us of our thankfulness and then I want to look at the truth that allows us to be thankful in all circumstance.

Why aren’t we thankful?

Lie #1 Entitlement

Truth #1 He is God

Lie #2 Misplaced Identity

Truth #2 We are His

Lie #3 Misplaced hope

Truth #3 The Lord is our hope.

Who He is and who we are

Why aren’t we thankful?

Entitlement - HIs is God He made us

As Parents we think we are entitled to our children’s respect and obedience. That may be technically true and yet it is that sense of entitlement that leads you to anger when your child disobeys or disrespects you. If anyone is entitled to respect and obedience it’s Gid and think how often we disobey and disrespect God yet that has never robbed him of a moment of joy.

Misplaced Identity - We are His

Identity is a bit of a buzz word now a days isn’t it. We hear people talking about there sexual identity. So I looked up the word identity and this is what I found. It means “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.” Someone’s identity is who they consider themselves to be. That’s why it’s so hard to tell someone that homosexuality is a sin. Because they have made that their identity. It’s who they consider themselves to be and to say that it is wrong is to say that who they are is wrong.

It’s also why it’s so hard to correct someone’s parenting. Because we parent’s wrap so much of our identity up into being a good parent and when someone tells us that we are doing something wrong it’s as if they are telling us that who we are is wrong.

Men, that’s why you get so mad at your wives for questioning or correcting your driving. Sometimes it doesn’t even take them saying anything. You see them flinch out of the corner of your eye or grab the handle and it irritates you. Because how dare they question your ability to drive. You are a man. You know how to drive. It’s who you consider yourself to be.

I remember a few years ago my wife correcting my driving and I got so mad and dramatic that I pulled over on the side of the road and told her to drive. It was after I calmed down that I realized that I had a problem and I needed to do more than just learn how to control my identity. I had to ask why I was getting so mad.

I realized that even as dumb as it was I placed my identity in being a good driver and every time my wife corrected me it’s like she was saying that who I considered myself to be was wrong. I had misplaced my identity and it robbed me of joy, it caused me to be angry, and it removed my ability to be thankful for all of the many times my wife was right as she corrected my driving.

Misplaced identity will rob of the ability to be thankful.

Misplaced Hope - He is our hope

It’s not a controversial statement to say our country seems to be falling apart. I used to have a pretty dismissive attitude about that. I couldn’t understand why people cared so much. Christianity survived Rome. It will survive whatever America turns into. I still believe that. But then I got daughters. I have two daughters who will have to live in whatever mess this country becomes and I understand why people get so upset about the direction our country is going in.

I understand why people put so much hope in a political candidate because they see that candidate as there only hope for their kids.

But what if instead of spending so much of our energy fighting the changing cultural norms of our country we teach our children that the Lord will be faithful to all generations.

Thanksgiving is rarely done through the power of the will and almost always done through the change of the heart.

Psalms 73–150: An Introduction and Commentary Psalm 100. Into His Courts

1. The joyful noise is not the special contribution of the tone-deaf, still less of the convivial, but the equivalent in worship to the homage-shout or fanfare (98:6) to a king, as in 95:1 or the almost identical 66:1. This verse claims the world for God: it should be thought-provoking to sing. As a matter of accuracy, there is no special emphasis on diversity in the word translated the lands (as there is in, e.g., 96:7; 97:1b); here it is simply ‘the earth’, a single entity.

END WITH THIS

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.” - C.S. Lewis