A Psalm of Thanksgiving

Introduction

As a kid, as a thanksgiving tradition, my grandfather started a tradition that I didn’t understand at first, but now since he is gone and our family has grown up and went and started their own traditions, I have grown to appreciate it. You see, Grandpa had this sort of special prayer that he liked to have prayed over the thanksgiving meal. The first year, He had it printed off, and did Himself. Then, each year, he chose to pass down the baton, asking one of us grandchildren to do it, usually it seemed choosing oldest to youngest in order. If I recall correctly, I was asked to do it twice. Each year, grandpa would hand us the piece of paper, which I believe to be the same one year after year, and as we were all about to start gathering, he called for silence and the prayer was read. Now, i’m not sure where grandpa got that prayer from, or if it was original to Himself. But, the fact that it made us all stop and think on all the things we had to be thankful for (as a people, as a nation, and as individuals) sticks out to me to do this day. As a child, who had his eyes on the crispy turkey skin, the importance of that was lost to me. But now as an adult, it makes me think warmly of old times, and helps me to recall a need for thankfulness in my life. Do you have any traditions like that in your family? Is this something you want to start?

Prayer/Scripture

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can be more like You, and made more into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all too often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possibly can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. I ask these things for your glory and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.

1 Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us, and we are his[a]— his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. 5 For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.

Context

Today’s text is in the book of Psalms, which is located about halfway through your bible. Though we have it all together, what we call the book of Psalms is actually a collection of 5 different books of Psalms, all of them with their own overall themes and focuses. All of which are either songs, poems, or lyrics for worship towards God, you might even go so far as to say that the book of Psalms was the first hymnal ever for the Judea-Christian religion.

This particular Psalm, 100, belongs to the 4th book. In it, we see a continual theme throughout it, the idea of God’s reign, His power, His might, His Goodness. While many of the Psalms were written by King David, and classically this one was either attributed or associated with him, we do not actually see any direct connection of David’s authorship, though it is likely that this was a Psalm that existed during his time and even used during temple worship, especially during festivals and times of the thanksgiving offerings being given to God.

In the text here, we can easily see that this was a song of celebration, something to commemorate, something to come together and do. You can just hear the words of the crowds and can almost imagine the words being sung as the crowds first enter the temple to give their offerings of thanks. What was the song saying and charging the listeners (including us) to do? To Come to God with overwhelming joy and thanks because of who He is. During this time where we give thanks in our culture, it is right and fitting for us to do the same, to give to God our heartfelt thanks and come to Him with joy for all the deeds He has done for us this year. Whether it was a hard year or not for you, still He was and is working all things for your (His child’s) good. So, to help us have that attitude of thanksgiving this holiday season and our life as well, let’s look at this worship Psalm, let’s jump in and From the text to text, I want you to see and do these actions in your life as you live a life of thanksgiving.

Message

The first action to see and do is to: Come with loud Joy 1-2

1 Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

Walking in the place of worship, here we see a posture that every Israelite was to enter with, what every Christian is supposed to come to church with. Not an attitude of regularity or empty ritual. Not half asleep. No. This is not a posture of worship. It’s a posture of duty and drudgery. Look at how the worship begins here. It’s a call upon the whole earth and call upon us to bring the world into worship of God. We are to rejoice loudly as a person or even a warrior who just had a great triumph. This is not the attitude of someone who stayed up late last night, or someone who didn’t prioritize worshiping God in their life, no, it is an attitude that puts worshiping God as the most important thing, what you have been looking forward to all week. With that same excitement, we look and seek to serve God with joy and gladness, how and what can we do to get closer to Him? To show Him just how much we honor and love Him? My heart cries out with the most joyful song.

We are all very familiar with, perhaps too familiar with it that we lose the importance of it. But, I know everyone here knows that classic Christmas Hymn, Joy to the world. Happiness, very big happiness to the world. Why? The Lord (Jesus) has come. Earth finally has her long awaited king, so let all of heaven and all of nature (us included) sing to that excitement. The king has come, we may be well once again. Sin no longer has a foothold over everyone who will put it aside and instead seek to worship the one and true God and King of the universe.

So then, let us Come to God with overwhelming joy and thanks because of who He is. Come to Him with a loud and rupturous joy. Let that joy energy be so strong that no wall, no mountain, no valley, no gorge, no fear cannot be conquered. So then believer, is this a posture that you can muster yourself to? Does that seem impossible to you on the regular? Sure, their are times to be sad and down, yes. But, can you recall joy? Can you see yourself ever having joy again? If not, ask your God to reveal Himself in a new way to yourself that you’ve never known Him before. Ask Him to show you something about Himself. Ask Him for joy, and He will show you in fact the wonders of His love to your joy.

The next action to see and do is to:Acknowledge who God is 3

3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us, and we are his[a]— his people, the sheep of his pasture.

One thing to know about the Hebrew words, in your bible, when you see the LORD all in capitals, this is specifically naming God. Yahweh. You see, many false Gods exist, but here it is charging us to do something that sounds simple, but actually requires a deep look into ourselves, how we think, what we do, even up to how we see the world. We have to acknowledge the Yahweh is God, that Yahweh is the only thing worthy of worship and praise. All other things that are high and lifted up in our hearts and minds, must be brought down to a place much lower than Him. In fact we are His, he made us, He keeps us, He sustains us. The Psalm then charges to us to remember that we (the redeemed) are His people, His sheep within His pasture. All of this means, acknowledging who He is, and who you are, and what everything else is and is not.

Acknowledging what something is and is not is so critical. I heard a story one time, where a man and his wife went on vacation together. They did their best to take good pictures in pretty places so they could show them all of their friends. Time after time, when showing the pictures around, the same or a similar response came out of the friends mouths. Wow, these are really nice, you must have a really great camera!! The husband, who was a hobby photographer, was a good sport at first, but after a while he got bothered. Then finally one day he ranted to his wife: "Why do people do this? Nobody looks at a painting and says, 'Nice brushes!' Nobody looks at a skyscraper and says, 'Nice drafting table!' Nobody looks at a sculpture and says, 'Nice chisel!' What's wrong with these people?" After getting that off his chest, his wife wisely responds, “ So then, how often do you look at creation and say, “wow, nice work God?””

Come to God with overwhelming joy and thanks because of who He is. Acknowledge who He is, believer. Quit putting things that hurt you and bring you down as above Him. So many things in each and every one of our lives is vying for that top spot, to be the god of our hearts and minds. Even very good things (like family, work, health, hobbies) do this, yet they do not belong there and it will only cause you harm if you do not put them back into their place. So then, really ask yourself, what am I prioritizing over God. Where is He second place or third or lower place in my life. Make no mistake, everyone in this room has something. Be brave and be ready to face that and rearrange your life to where things are back in the right order. When you do this, you will discover peace and joy where you had not known it before. Acknowledge who God is and be ready to thank Him for it.

Another action to see and do is to:Give thanks for His Goodness 4-5

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. 5 For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.

Come to Him! Come to God with thanks, come to Him with praise. Speak well of Him, think highly of Him. Speak and praise about Him openly around everyone you know everywhere you go. Why? Because He is Good (in fact nothing else is). He is faithful in is love and cherishing of you (His child) forever. He can and does have the same strength and vigor of affection for all the generations who have put their hope and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation! For that alone, besides all the blessings He has given us, give thanks to Him for His very essence and nature of Goodness.

Come to God with overwhelming joy and thanks because of who He is. So then, are you a thankful person? Do you give thanks often? Do you give thanks to God often? Well, let me just charge you, if you aren’t likely to give thanks to the people around you, it’s very unlikely that you do to God in the way that you should. Yes, mankind is inherently not good and evil, as opposed to God who is always good and in Him is no wickedness. However, all of our human race has a strange disposition to forget to give thanks to God as often as we should. We love the gift, but not the gift giver as the saying goes. Why? Well, that’s on each and every heart and ultimately it has everything to do with the curse of sin that has wounded and scarred our fallen world. Yet, one day, God promises to make all this wrong right. We know from The Bible, that God will restore everything to perfection one day, even despite our wickedness! So then, let us praise Him and give thanks for His goodness. He has shown us love and favor in Christ that we don’t deserve and without His good and loving character we would never know!

Conclusion

Beloved, as this week we are celebrating a time of giving thanks. Let us not forget to do so to God. This week, take a little time, write something down every day that you are thankful to God for. Then, as you dwell on that, remember to do those things we have seen in the Psalm today, to Come with loud Joy 1-2 (be ready to celebrate it a big way), Acknowledge who God is 3 (which includes acknowledging what everything else is) and Give thanks for His Goodness 4-5 (which is something that we would never ever know without Him. Thank God for your year, thank God for your life, Thank God for His provision, Thank God for the very air you breathe, for it all His, and He has given you things to steward that you would bring Him honor and glory in your time on earth.

With all of that being said, I would be remiss if I didn’t share the Gospel (or the Good News) of Jesus Christ with you today, for the benefit of both believer and non-believer in the room. This begins all the way back at the beginning, God created everything, and he created all things good. He gave His most treasured creation (us, mankind) the ability of free will, the ability to choose Him or rebellion. Man was deceived by Satan and desired to be like God and sinned (or rebelled against God). This brought the curse of sin and death into the world and it remains with us to this day; which separates us from God. God, though, loved His creation (mankind) so much that He worked through history to redeem all mankind that would turn to Him from sin so that we can experience a full and perfect relationship with Him again. This was through the perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the pay for sins. Accepting this free gift from God, makes you new and forgiven. All you have to do is accept this free gift by repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus and you will get to experience the good side of God’s justice forever. So, now that you know this, you can no longer plead ignorance. I invite and urge you to respond today non-believer and apply this to every part of your life believers in the audience today.

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can be more like You, and made more into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all too often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possibly can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.