Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving
Psalms: Exalting King Jesus • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 31:59
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· 12 viewsGod calls you to joyful, thankful worship because He is good and has made us and we are His.
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Call to Worship
Call to Worship
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Adoration
Adoration
1 Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord!
2 Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore!
3 From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised!
4 The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens!
5 Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high,
6 who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?
Confession
Confession
6 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.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
11 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.
Message
Message
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.
God calls you to joyful, thankful worship because He is good and has made us and we are His.
God calls you to joyful, thankful worship because He is good and has made us and we are His.
A Psalm for giving thanks.
This little phrase before the Psalm is called a superscription.
It tells you detail and background to how the Psalm was used historically in Israel.
This Psalm has been used by Israel for thousands of years for thanksgiving.
Now it’s important on the front end to say that this Psalm is not meant to motivate the people to give thanksgiving.
It’s not meant to stir us up to thanksgiving!
It’s merely instructing the people in how to give thanks as the people of God!
Notice what came before in Psalm 99:8-9, in remembering the Exodus and God’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt.
8 O Lord our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.
9 Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy!
The Psalm before reminds the reader of the absolute Holiness of Yahweh.
His desire to forgive His people and punish the wrongdoer.
Yahweh is utterly different than we are, He is utterly unique, and set apart.
Psalm 100 is instruction on what proper praise looks like as the redeemed and set apart people unto Himself.
Psalm 100 will not pick us up and motivate us to praise.
It instructs those who have been redeemed on what proper praise looks like from a redeemed heart.
Applications to Unbeliever
I want to pause here and tell you something.
If you don’t know this God, today’s sermon will be dry.
It will be hollow.
It will be empty.
It won’t make any sense.
God doesn’t need your praise.
He doesn’t need you today.
He’s NOT some weak, flimsy, and needy ‘god’ that is just pining for your attention.
He is the transcendent God who made all things.
He made heaven and earth.
Yet we cannot miss today that He commands your praise.
Not because He’s needy, but because He is worthy to be praised!
The Call to Worship: Shout, Serve, and Come!
The Call to Worship: Shout, Serve, and Come!
1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Notice first who this Psalm is directed toward: “all the earth!”
A “joyful noise” is to “shout in triumph” or to “Rejoice” with loud songs of praise to Yahweh.
They are not merely singing songs to some unknown deity hoping to be heard.
They are rejoicing and singing loud songs of praise to the covenant keeping God, to the promise keeping God.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness!
It should be no surprise that the Hebrew word here for work and worship are almost synonymous.
Only in Western 21st century minds do we separate our work from our worship.
The language of “serve” literally is to “work” or “labor.”
So when we see the language here of “serve” don’t just think about “worship” on Sunday morning.
Though that is implied, it’s much richer and fuller than that.
Our worship is also our work.
Our worship is our labor in the Lord.
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Worship is our response to who God is and what He has done for us.
And that response is more than what a person does on Sunday morning.
We ought never to think that worship is merely what we do when we ‘sing.’
Worship is what we do when we go to work and make a living.
When we discipline our children.
As many have often observed that the way a person works, reveals the kind of God they believe in.
If a person believes that they have to serve God in some sort of slavish obedience, then inevitably it will become a chore.
“All God wants for himself are little servants to do His bidding!”
They reveal the kind of ‘god’ they believe exists.
Something they’re required to do although they have no interest in it.
This is not the kind of service that God is pleased with.
Notice that little phrase “with gladness”
God wants all of our worship to be done with gladness.
He desires that all our worship and work to be done with gladness.
It’s no coincidence that people who are often begrudging, grumpy, or complainy; also hold beliefs about God which are out of step with His character.
Application for Christians at Work
It ought to be so strange to see a Christian working that is not joyful.
It is with glad-hearted obedience that God is to be praised!
Come into his presence with singing!
The Psalm’s are littered with musical instruments that should be used.
But do you know what instrument is demanded in every Psalm?
Our voices.
Singing is demanded in every Psalm.
It’s a non-negotiable.
Of all the worldviews around the world, Judaism and Christianity are the only ones that command the worshippers to sing.
In Islam, Allah does not command singing.
In Buddhism, Buddha doesn’t command singing.
Secularism definitely doesn’t command singing.
But Yahweh, the God revealed in the OT and NT commands singing.
God delights to hear the worst of singers.
He delights to hear the best of singers.
Men, He delights to hear your singing.
Women, He delights to hear your singing.
Children, He delights to hear your singing.
The center of this Psalm is the command to Know Yahweh!
The Reason for Worship: Know Him because He made us
The Reason for Worship: Know Him because He made us
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.
Knowledge of God here is more than knowing facts about God.
It’s to know Him personally.
To know Him experientially.
This knowledge is actually used to describe Adam’s relationship with Eve where Cain was conceived (Genesis 4:1).
It demands an intimacy and knowledge that goes beyond mere facts about a person.
The Psalmist is beckoning all the people of the earth to behold God’s gracious activity toward His particular people.
He calls everyone to look at the good shepherd.
The good shepherd that tended His people in the wilderness in the OT (Psalm 95:6-7).
The good shepherd that protected His sheep, fed His sheep from the rock, watered His sheep from the bitter water, and cared for them in the dark valleys (Psalm 23:4).
You can feel the Psalmist calling the nations up and inward to see God’s gracious activity toward His people.
Application to Unbelievers —
If you’re an unbeliever here…
I wonder what you think of this text calling you to “Know the LORD”?
I wonder even what you think it means to be a Christian?
Knowing the Lord is central to our relationship with Him!
Application to Believers
This knowledge of God is actually one of the promises of the New Covenant (1 Peter 2:9-10).
When God changes our hearts, He writes His very law upon it.
23 Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,
24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
This knowledge comes to us by the work of the Spirit of God applying to us His Word.
As Jesus describes His own activity.
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
The Call to Thanksgiving: Enter, give thanks, and bless Him!
The Call to Thanksgiving: Enter, give thanks, and bless Him!
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!
Notice the progression of this Psalm.
It’s as if the Psalmist has called to all the nations (Psalm 100:1).
But then it’s as if they have come and now are standing outside the gates of Jerusalem.
The nations now are standing and waiting outside the gates with joyful song.
But now they are welcomed into the “gates with thanksgiving” (Psalm 100:4), and then even further into “his courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4).
This progression is striking.
The gates are likely the gates into the city of Jerusalem, the city where God’s Glory, Name, and house dwelt.
The courts are then the courts just outside the temple where the Gentiles are.
There’s a problem here: most of us have never been to Jerusalem.
Most of us have never been to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
But even if we have, it wouldn’t matter because the Temple of Jesus’ day is gone.
It’s at this point that we have to read this as Modern Jews, which wail an weep at the Western wall waiting for Messiah to come.
Or we read it like thoroughly convinced NT Christians that understand that Messiah has come.
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,
23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,
24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Don’t read it pinning after the physical place to Jerusalem.
Read it like a NT Christian.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!
Jesus Christ is the meeting place of God and man.
He is the gateway and doorway to Heaven.
All that Jerusalem pointed toward the OT, He embodies by His Spirit through His Word to those who trust in Him.
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
The command of giving thanks isn’t a minor note for the Christian life.
It is central.
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.
The Christian life is one gigantic Thanksgiving day.
Where we’re called to give thanks for everything.
6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
When we’re anxious, we’re called to pray.
But prayer is more than just verbal dumping and saying “Amen” at the end.
This is why many people are still anxious after prayer.
Their prayers sound like,
“Help me with this…I’m nervous about that…I don’t know what to do there…”
All true things.
All correct about the situation.
But none of it with thanksgiving.
Christian’s know the results of prayer ought to be…
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
And then they become discouraged in their prayer times because they’re “still anxious.”
But what if prayer was always mingled with thanksgiving…
“I’m not sure why I’m going through this, but thank You for the opportunity to make much of you...”
“I don’t see what Your doing here, but thank You for allowing me to go through it…”
The Reason for Thanksgiving: The LORD is good
The Reason for Thanksgiving: The LORD is good
5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
Yahweh’s “loyal love” to His covenant people lasts forever.
He does not change His mind toward His people.
His love extends further beyond and higher than their performance before Him.
It extends to the highest high and to the lowest low.
It extends to all generations!
God calls you to joyful, thankful worship because He is good and has made us and we are His.
God calls you to joyful, thankful worship because He is good and has made us and we are His.
Time of Testimony
Time of Testimony
Don’t share today because you feel obligated.
Share today because the Lord has done a work in your life and you want to share it.
1. Share today from a heart of faith!
When we share we’re sharing our story.
But it’s not OURS in some selfish, keep-it-to-myself sense.
Our story demands that God has worked His story into our own.
2. Share His Story in your life!
Benediction
Benediction
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
