Come Before Him With Thanksgiving

Introduction

Is it easy to give thanks?

When was your last time giving thanks to the Lord? For what reason? Do we only give thanks to the Lord when good things happen?

Background of this Psalm. Most likely composed for the Feast of Tabernacles, to remember their time of encampment in the wilderness.

The Posture of thanksgiving (v1-2)

the word “thanksgiving” is a confession, to speak works of personal praise. it always accompanied with sacrifice, the worship in the OT.

a call to worship come together with a call of thanksgiving. we can see it through our call to worship this morning, which is extracted from psalm 95. and there are similar writing found in psalm 69 and 100. Thanksgiving goes hand in hand with worship. the worship shows delight in doing so. thanksgiving should not be a forced action, but something that we enjoy to do so. worship is the greatest way to thank Him. our song of praise is our natural concomitant of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a way to respond to the invitation to worship.

it is not because of what we have received that we show our thanksgiving, but out of delight for God. We are not merely to feel what we have to thank God for and what we owe to Him, but to express it also in word and deed.—Thou hast, perhaps, a desire to speak with God

What is worship? Our English word means honour and reverence paid to worth—worth-ship. It stands here for a Hebrew word, literally meaning “to fall” or “prostrate one’s self;” i.e. (according to Eastern usage) by kneeling, and touching the ground with the forehead. It shows a posture of humility.

The whole good of the believer is contained in one word: God is his God.—As certain as are the oaths of God, whereby He promises life and blessedness to the penitent, so certain are those by which He announces eternal destruction to the obstinate ungodly. Our most valuable possession is God himself.

The call to offer God joyful thanksgiving is made to everybody, without qualification or limitation. It may be that certain forms of Divine worship are properly reserved for those who are in certain states of mind, or have voluntarily entered into certain relations; but the common duties of thanksgiving rest on all humanity—the claims of the God of providence and mercy should be felt, and should be responded to, by every man made in the Divine image

illustration: story of one singing praise in time of suffering

The Reason of thanksgiving (v3-7)

For who He is (v3-5)

The idea of worship expressing the ‘worthship’ of God belongs to the English word. A public act of homage is urged on us here as part of the service we owe to God, accepting our own place and acknowledging his. All worship is based upon an acknowledgment of the Divine majesty, creative omnipotence, and watchful love of the Eternal.

the rock of our salvation. God Himself is the Rock on which our salvation rests, and that is one great consolation, for if it rested on our own strength, it would be a tottering support. the one whom all our security and peace is built.

great God and King above all gods.

v4 the depths of the earth and the peak of the mountain belong to him and governed by him. all things are under his government.

For who we are (v6-7)

He is our maker. Indeed the world itself is ours, while we ‘are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s’ (1 Cor. 3:22f.).

He is our provider. We are the people of his pasture, and flock under his care. It indicates familiarity with Eastern shepherding. The shepherd lives with his flock day and night; feels for them a personal affection; tends them in all their times of need with his own hands. So the Eastern sheep and shepherd figures, for God and his people, are stronger and more suggestive than we can realize if we keep ourselves to Western shepherd associations. In so carefully putting people into one sentence, and sheep into the other, the psalmist reminds us that God’s sheep are moral beings, and the mere physical relations of shepherds to their sheep do but represent and illustrate the moral relations in which God stands to his people as moral beings. So we rise into a sphere in which we need the help of another figure—that of the father and his family

The Hindrance of thanksgiving (v8-10)

a hardened heart. it is voluntary and self-initiated way of making oneself stubborn. a wilful disobedience and obstinate unbelief.

a complaining heart (Meribah).

a testing heart (Massah). it cost Moses the promised land (Numbers 20:1-13)

an unbelieving heart is the main source of all. (Hebrews 3:7-4:13) . Hebrews 3:7–4:13, expounding our psalm, forbids us to confine its thrust to Israel. The ‘Today’ of which it speaks is this very moment; the ‘you’ is none other than ourselves, and the promised ‘rest’ is not Canaan but salvation.

Hardness of heart is at the bottom of all our distrusts of God and quarrels with Him. That is a hard heart which receives not the impressions of Divine discoveries, and conforms not to the intentions of the Divine will; which will not melt, which will not bend.

how could it possible to avoid having these hearts. immediately before verse 8, it is said that “if only you would hear his voice.” And ‘hear’, or hearken to, has often the added dimension in Hebrew of ‘obey’, for which the Old Testament has virtually no other word

Warning Against Unbelief

7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

8 do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion,

during the time of testing in the wilderness,

9 where your ancestors tested and tried me,

though for forty years they saw what I did.

10 That is why I was angry with that generation;

I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,

and they have not known my ways.’

11 So I declared on oath in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ” k

12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. 15 As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion.” q

16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

A Sabbath-Rest for the People of God

4 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. x 3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

“So I declared on oath in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ” y

And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.” z 5 And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”

6 Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, 7 God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.” c

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, f just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Conclusion (v11)

Many of us hardly find rest today. there are too many ways to make us bring unthankful. Being thanksful to the Lord is a way to find rest.

In relation to the Exodus it meant God’s land to settle in, and peace to enjoy it (cf. Gen. 49:15; Ps. 132:14; 1 Kgs 8:56). But Hebrews 4:1–13 argues that the psalm still offers us, by its emphatic Today, a rest beyond anything that Joshua won, namely a share in God’s own sabbath rest: the enjoyment of his finished work not merely of creation but of redemption

hymn: all creatures of our god and king

Come before Him with thanksgiving, for that is greatest posture of worship. the more thankful we are, the more we find rest in Him.

an unbelieving heart