Psalm 100: A Psalm for Giving Thanks

Even in the hard Thanksgivings… the storms of life… Thanksgiving allows you to take a step back and remember all of God’s other blessings even amidst the pain.

But Thanksgiving is not just a day fun, eating , and family… its a day… first and foremost… that gives us an opportunity to worship… to remember God and give thanks to Him.

The very first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims who after a brutal year where they had lost nearly half their members, they had a bountiful corn harvest.

A token that God had blessed them… was with them and would carry them through.

And so they set aside three days to celebrate and feast on the kindness and goodness of God and give thanks to Him.

Thanksgiving is worship.

And when you read the New Testament all of a Christian’s life is to be one of… thanksgiving.

Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 2:6–7 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Abounding in thanksgiving!

And remember what God says of the Sinner in Romans 1… 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 (Romans 1:21).

Thanksgiving is the lifeblood of the Christian life.

A happy gratitude for all that God is and all that God’s done bears the fruit of a happy and holy life.

What fuels our love and affections for God?

What fuels our walk and our Christian Life?

How do you put your sin to death and mortify the deeds of the flesh?

A happy and thankful heart.

The more thankful we are the more we will live our life from Him.

We don’t white-knuckle our own holiness by our strength and our own will.

Our love for sin is literally choked out by a greater love for God where sin no longer tastes so sweet because God is sweeter.

But how you have this joyful love… this happy gratitude… is by having a theology that can support it.

What are you thankful for in the first place?

Psalm 100 gives us that happy theology that we might love and worship Him and live all of our lives in happy gratitude… joyful worship… for all that He is and all that He’s done for us in Jesus Christ.

Psalm 100 is a Psalm for Thanksgiving.

Thanks

Psalm 100 begins with A Psalm for Giving Thanks.

That’s the original Hebrew Title.

The word in the Old Testament is also used to talk about Thanksgiving Offerings to God.

So what this Psalm is is a Psalm of sacrificial, God-honoring praise.

Psalm 100 is a short Psalm… its just 5 verses.

Yet its jam-packed with the kind of theology that can literally change your life.

Its a… jubilant exultation that teaches us the glory and the grace of God that we might join in the Psalm and worship God in thanksgiving.

Word Study: Give Thanks

In fact… the root word for Give thanks… is the Hebrew word for “praise.”

And when you look at the word in the New Testament its Greek root word means to rejoice and be glad.

Its also associated with:

Grace.

Joy.

Favor… as in to bestow favor on someone or to favor someone highly.

Its associated with the idea of forgiveness and giving someone a gift.

So “thanksgiving” is receiving God’s grace, gifts, favor, blessing, and forgiveness and returning all those things back to Him in joyful praise.

Thanksgiving praising God with glad and joyful hearts for all of His grace!

Its praising God for His Ordinary Blessings

Blessings like food, clothing, health, family…

Its praising God for His Spiritual Blessings…

Things like justification… adoption… the free grace of eternal life…

And its praising God even in the midst our Trials and Afflictions.

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

God’s will is for you to give thanks in all circumstances.

Well how can you be thankful in trials and tribulations?

By believing that God is Absolutely Sovereign and Absolutely Good…

That God works all things together for the good of those that love Him (Romans 8:28).

That your life is not chaos and that whatever storms or trials come into your life must first come through your Father’s wise… loving… and sovereign hands.

When we can say… God thank you for being… thank you for helping me… thank you that even this will turn out for your glory and my good… that’s the kind of faith that praises God absolutely and praises Him with a faith that can move mountains.

And that’s the theology of Psalm 100… A Psalm for Giving Thanks.

The way the Psalm works is that there are repeating stanzas.

First… there’s a call for praise… that’s verses 1-2.

And then there’s reason for that praise in verse 3…

A Theology of God that doesn’t just teach the mind but actually floods the soul with the glory and grace of God that those truths… those promises… that theology might overflow back to Him in a spirit of joyful worship and thanksgiving.

And then there is another call to praise in verse 4 with another theology of God’s glory and grace closing out the Psalm in verse 5.

The first call to praise is Psalm 100 verse 1…

Psalm 100:1–2 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!

Make a joyful noise is literally a jubilant shout.

Serve the Lord with gladness.

Come into His presence with singing.

This is not dry or dead worship.

This is worship that is alive.

Its the whole heart… the whole man.

Singing

This is why one of the ways we worship God is with singing.

Singing touches the mind, heart, soul, and emotions.

If we just mouth the words… that’s not worship… that’s going through the motions.

We want to believe and proclaim the words we are singing which is why the songs we sing need a rich and robust theology.

Just like Psalm 100 they proclaim to us truth and help us to proclaim what we are worshiping God for.

But what I want you to see here is that there should be a gladness and thankfulness in our worship that overflows from a heart bursting with praise.

But how do you have that?

Its nice to talk about having our love and affections stirred up but there’s no way we can force that.

How many times has your worship felt dry or dead.

That’s where the theology comes in.

Worship is a response.

Theology leads to Doxology.

The more we know God and His grace and believe those truths the more love and worship we are going to have in our hearts.

And that’s verse 3.

Psalm 100:3 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.

This is just one verse, but this verse is loaded.

Know the Lord

First the Psalm tells us to Know that the Lord, He is God.

This is more than just intellectual knowledge.

What the Psalm is emphasizing here is Know that the Lord… He is the only God.

Know that the Lord… He is God alone!

There are no other gods and as God alone He alone deserves all our glory (Isaiah 46:9).

When the Psalmist says Know that the Lord, He is God, its essentially proclaiming the first commandment You shall have no other gods before me… You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve (Exodus 20:3; Luke 4:8).

True Worship is Absolute Submission and Absolute Devotion to Him.

Luther said that to Know that the Lord, He is God meant “to trust and believe him with our whole heart” and “to … look for all good and … [to] find refuge [in him]” alone.

Tanner and Jacobson, “Book Four of the Psalter: Psalms 90–106,” in The Book of Psalms, ed. E. J. Young, R. K. Harrison, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 740.

Its an absolute faith that says God you are my only God…

My only Lord…

My only Life…

My only Help…

My only Hope, Shield, and Defender, and Strength.

My only source of All Good.

Its Joshua 24… Choose this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).

New Covenant

This is the promise of God’s grace in Christ in the New Covenant.

In fact all of the theology of Psalm 100 ultimately finds all of its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

In the New Covenant God said I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest (Hebrews 8:10-11).

Christ is the Revelation of the Father.

He is the Word incarnate in human flesh.

He said I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9).

And John said And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

The only way to know God and to worship Him is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ

The Bible says God is Love and Christ is the incarnation of the Father’s love for us in dying for us on the cross (1 John 4:8).

The effects of that love… and the grace and truth of the Father seen in the second part of verse 3…

He Made/Redeemed Us

It is He who made us, and we are His.

Now at first glance this looks like the Psalm is talking about our creation.

How we are all made in the image and likeness of God. with God as our Creator and we His creatures.

That’s true enough and its important that we recognize ourselves as God’s creatures because if our life comes from God then therefore our life… and all our life… is owed back to Him in joyful worship.

However… this verse is not talking about our Creation… it is actually talking about our Redemption.

It is He who made us as in… it is He who made us His people.

It is He who brought about our redemption and salvation.

That’s the emphasis of the context when it says we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Those two explain the grace of what it means that He made us…

He made us His people…

He made us His sheep…

That “Made us” is also the word used in Psalm 118:15–16 Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the Lord does [there’s our word] valiantly, the right hand of the Lord exalts, the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!” [there’s our word again].

In other words the right hand of the Lord is mighty to save.

Doctrines of Grace

This line speaks to the Doctrines of Grace and the Sovereignty of God in our salvation.

Its is God’s grace and power that made us His people… it was not our strength or our works.

It was God’s grace in Electing us for salvation.

We did not save ourselves or make ourselves the people of God!

God did it by His own sovereign grace.

Look at Ephesians 1:3–6…

Ephesians 1:3-6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.

Who is the emphasis on here.

God!… its not on us.

He chose us… He predestined us… according to the purpose of His will.

It is He who made us and we are His!

We are saved by grace and we are saved by grace alone.

It is the free gift of Eternal Life and God’s sovereign work to take our dead, stony hearts and make them live.

Here again… the Psalm is fulfilled in Christ.

How did God make us?… How did God redeem us?… how did God make us His people and His sheep?

With the blood of His own precious Son.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

The Bible says we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1).

We were hopeless… helpless… powerless to save ourselves.

But God… in His grace and His mercy… made us and we are His.

Ephesians 2:4–5, 8-9 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ… For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The Grace of Election

I think one of the things that most drives a spirit of thankfulness deep in my heart and inspires me to live a life wholly unto God is the Doctrine of Election.

That God chose me before the foundation of the world out of nothing but the good pleasure of His will.

You see… Election always gets a bad rap as if God chose us because we are special…

People hate Calvinism and the Doctrines of Grace because they think its arrogant, but there could be nothing further from the truth.

God did not choose us because of any good in us or any works we’ve done.

We were slaves of sin… children of wrath like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:3).

But God chose us because it pleased Him to do so.

And without that grace… I would still be lost… still be blind… still dying and thirty as a slave to sin and under God’s wrath.

I would not have my wife… my children… this church…

All the blessings in my life stem from God’s grace in Christ in Election.

You want a happy gratitude and a life of worship?

We all know our sins!

Imagine what your life would be like without Christ!

No wonder Paul said Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift! (2 Corinthians 9:15).

His People

Next the Psalmist goes on to explain what it means that we are His.

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

We are His people is the language of Covenant… I will be their God and they shall be my people… as in God’s own people… His own treasured possession.

In Deuteronomy 7:6 God says For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

God’s own chosen, precious people.

Its the same language Peter uses for the New Testament Church in 1 Peter 2:9–10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

All those in Christ are God’s own chosen people… and His own treasured possession.

This is one of the greatest blessings we have in our salvation because in being a part of God’s chosen people we have God Himself as our God.

Now what does that mean?

When God says I shall be your God and you shall be my people… it means that all that God is… is ours!

Paul says He is the God of All comfort and the Father of mercies (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

Whenever our hearts are troubled we can always run to Him.

Psalm 18:2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Psalm 46:1–2 The LORD is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.

Your whole world could fall out from underneath you and God would still have you.

If we are His then God is:

Our Rock

Our Shield

Our Fortress

Our Strong Tower and Defender

Our Strength and very present help in time of trouble.

In other words… God is our God and we are His people.

When sickness comes… we are His.

When you lose a job… have a death in the family….

When the storms of life are about to blow you down…. you are still His.

God has promised I will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).

I will never forget you or turn a blind eye to you.

I will be your God always… and set my will and my purpose to always do you good.

Good Shepherd

The other part of He made us and we are His is that we are the sheep of His pasture.

What that means is that God is our Shepherd… and what do Shepherds do?

They love the sheep…

Feed the sheep…

Care for the sheep…

Guide the sheep…

Heal the sheep…

Protect the sheep…

And binds up their wounds.

He leads them to green pastures and still waters (Psalm 23:1-2).

Without the shepherd the sheep are vulnerable and helpless (cf. Matthew 9:36).

But the Good Shepherd saves them and keeps them by His almighty power.

The picture of God as a Shepherd is a picture of God’s tender love and care for His Sheep.

The tender love and care ultimately shown in Christ.

Jesus said in John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

And in John 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus laid down His life for us.

And He loved us and died for us each by name.

He said, I know my own and my own know me (John 10:14).

And the Shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (John 10:3).

He leads them out of sin… death… wrath…

Into the green pastures and still waters of Eternal Life.

Also from that Good Shepherd passage I came that they may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).

The picture is fat, happy, frolicking sheep.

Peace… rest on every side… the fullness of joy with no danger or fear of any kind.

That is the life the Good Shepherd gives to us in laying down His life.

Salvation and the full forgiveness of sins.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).

Christ died in our place for our sins.

And now the Good Shepherd gathers us in His arms.

He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young (Isaiah 40:11).

We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Call to Praise

Verse 4 again takes up the call to praise.

Psalm 100:4-5 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

And then verse 5 gives us another reason for that praise and instead of focusing on what God’s done it focuses on who God is.

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

God’s goodness is explained in the following two lines… His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.

Steadfast Love

God’s Steadfast Love is His forever, unbreakable, Covenant-keeping love.

Its sometimes translated as loving kindness or everlasting love.

Its the Word in Hebrew that used for God’s Covenant love and faithfulness… His forever, unfailing love.

Absolutely True and Absolutely Dependable…

The kind of love you can bank your life and eternity on (Deuteronomy 32:4, 31, 37).

Forever Faithfulness

Not only is God’s goodness His forever, steadfast love…

God’s goodness is His forever faithfulness.

His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.

God never lies (Titus 1:2).

He is wholly trustworthy and faithful in all His promises.

And He will always be faithful.

James says He is Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (James 1:17).

He is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

What that means is that inn a world that is constantly shifting and changing God is the One, True Constant in your life.

The One who can always be trusted and depended upon.

Numbers 23:19 says God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

That means that God’s steadfast love for you will never change and that all of God’s promises are as good as gold.

They will never fail or fall to the ground (cf. Joshua 21:45).

Connection to Christ

And so the Psalm says Give thank to the Lord and bless His Name… For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

God’s goodness… steadfast love… and faithfulness are all directly connected to His Name.

When Moses said Lord, show me your glory! God said man cannot see my face and live but I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’” (Exodus 33:18-20).

And so God hid Moses in the cleft of the Rock and proclaimed The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty,(Exodus 34:5-7).

God’s goodness and steadfast love and faithfulness is God’s grace in salvation in Jesus Christ.

How does God forgive iniquity and transgression and sin while still upholding His holiness… righteousness… and justice… who will by no means clear the guilty?

Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:23–26 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation [or a sacrifice that satisfies God’s wrath] by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Conclusion

When you look at Psalm 100 as a whole what reasons do we have to worship God with glad and thankful hearts in Jesus Christ?

He is the One True God… the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

He is our Creator and Redeemer who has saved us and made us His own chosen people… His treasured possession with all the blessings and promises that come with that relationship.

He is our Shield… Defender… Strong Tower.

God of all Comfort and Father of Mercies.

He is the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep and carries the weak in His bosom to green pastures and still waters.

He is Good and abounding in infinite goodness.

His steadfast love endures forever.

And He is forever faithful keeping His faithfulness and promises to all generations.

True Thanksgiving worships God with a glad and thankful heart for His Glory and Saving Grace.

Would you characterize your life as one of thanksgiving?

Would you characterize your life… your walk… your faith as one of joyful praise and gratitude to God?

Do you live like it?

“God… these gifts are Yours… here they are back to you in praise!”

“God you gave me life… my life is yours!”

At the end of the day… all of a Christian’s life is meant to be one of thanksgiving.

Of thankfulness to God and His grace in Christ.

God’s gifts… and kindness… and graces… all His blessings… are not meant to be ends in and of themselves… enjoyed and quickly forgotten.

When we bless someone we are offended by their ingratitude.

It doesn’t just scorn the gift… it scorns the Giver!

God good gifts are wasted when those good gifts are not given back to Him in praise!

The Christian Life should be one that in all circumstances and with every blessing says, “God… Thank You!… thank You for this blessing and that blessing… for this grace and that grace…

Because when we live a life of thankfulness what we are really saying id, “God you are the giver of every good gift and all my life comes from you!” (James 1:17).

Thankfulness exalts God’s glory and that’s what Thanksgiving is truly meant to be about.

Not just a day… but living all our life in grateful gratitude for God’s glory and grace in Jesus Christ.

All His kindness… all His glory… all His faithfulness and all His good gifts.

Thanksgiving truly is the heart of worship.

Its the heart of contentment and true joy.

Its the heart that knows God fully and rightly.

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

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