Thankfulness Option 2

Psalm 100

Thank you Preacher for giving me this opportunity and placing this responsibility on my shoulders for this night. Preparing for tonight has already led me into methods of study I haven’t had to use in many years. I also thank you church, for suffering me to be up here speaking to you tonight.

I want to start by saying I recognize my relative immaturity in my faith, having only been saved these last few years. That being said, and this being my first sermon, I wanted to speak about something very fundamental to the life of a Christian. What makes us different from those who don’t know Jesus?

There’s a lot of things that make us different. After all, 2 Corinthians 5:17 says who we a new creature. The old is passed away and we have been renewed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit after being washed clean of our sins and our guilt by Jesus Christ. This is what happened to every true follower of Christ, everyone who trusted in Him for their salvation. I want to focus on the what the driving force of our service to Him is as a result of that transformation: thankfulness.

Just a few weeks ago, our Pastor finished a series on what makes a good church and ended it off by saying how thankful we should be. A week before that, we had shared some of what we are thankful for with each other. Tonight, lets talk about what is at the core of our gratitude.

Turn with me tonight to Psalm 100. The Bible says “

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, And into his courts with praise: Be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; And his truth endureth to all generations.”

This psalm is a perfect summary for why we should be thankful, and how that drives our service. It is also a summary of the several preceding psalms just before this. In this psalm are 4 charges to the reader which seem to grow louder as I read them.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands

What does joy look like? Joyful noise = shout, in this context with religious fervor, singing and sacrifice.

Psalm 98:4 “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: Make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.”

Psalm 95:1–2 “O come, let us sing unto the Lord: Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, And make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.”

Who? All ye lands. The Lord made all the Earth and everything that inhabits it. Yes, this psalm was written by an Israelite, but this was not written TO Israel. It was written to the world, and this is reflected in psalms preceding this as well.

Psalm 96:1 “O sing unto the Lord a new song: Sing unto the Lord, all the earth.”

Psalm 97:1 “The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; Let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.”

Again Psalm 98 says “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: Make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” It says to let even the sea roar, the floods clap their hands, and the hills be joyful together.

God created everyone and everything and all of creation is charged to make this joyful noise to the Lord.

To share a personal story, which helped me really understand this when I was just saved. I shared with a long time friend of mine that I was saved and they shouted and knocked me over because of their joy. It wasn’t the kind of thing I was used to at the time, but it made an impact on me. Make a joyful noise, for in knowing God, we can know true joy and that kind of joy has a way of forcing its way out of us.

Serve the Lord with gladness: Come before his presence with singing

This is a two part charge: First, we serve.

As Christians, our lives are not our own. Paul, James, Peter, Jude, and more introduced themselves in epistles as servants of Jesus Christ. Prophets in the Old Testament as well were explicitly descried as servants. This is a foreign idea in many modern nations. We don’t have servants, we flinch at the idea, in our pride we say we’re “servants” to nobody. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We all serve something.

Most serve themselves, gratifying themselves at every opportunity because “we deserve happiness.”

Others serve more obvious and well known idols, setting themselves upon god’s of clay, wood, paint, metal or even formless ideology. This makes us puffed up and causes us to claim ourselves wise.

These things have a tendency to result in self-righteousness and cynicism, and it is with their cynicism that they serve.

Christians are different. We serve with gladness. We don’t ask for anything in return because we have already gotten more than we deserve. We experienced the love of God by way of Jesus Christ. We gained forgiveness by way of Jesus Christ. We have revelation unknown to generations past by way of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says in John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

John 15:10–11 “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”

The biggest reason we serve however is simple: He gave everything, to give us everything. There is a line in a hymn that makes this point more clear than I could: Jesus gave it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. We serve Jesus, because Jesus, being God, being innocent, gave His life for us that we could have eternal life, and he was resurrected as proof of His victory over sin and death.

We come before his presence. We opened services tonight in the same way we open every service, the same way every church opens their services. We sing. We pray, we sing more. We end with praying or singing.

Psalm 96:1–2 “O sing unto the Lord a new song: Sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless his name; Shew forth his salvation from day to day.”

Psalm 98:5 “Sing unto the Lord with the harp; With the harp, and the voice of a psalm.”

Hebrews 13:15 “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.”

There is a woman I know of in the city, I have never gotten her name, though I need to. What I do know of her though, is that she is constantly singing praises to God. I have never passed her and not heard one hymn after another from her. She isn’t anyone special by our standards. She’s a cashier, overseeing the self checkout. God sees her though. God hears her praises, and her sacrifice of praise will not go unrewarded. This is the gladness we are to serve with, the gladness and singing of an elderly lady, who doesn’t concern herself with the opinions of people around her but makes joyful sacrifice daily to our God.

Know ye that the Lord he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of this pasture.

Here is where the differences between Christians and the world start to become apparent.

Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving