A Psalm of Thanksgiving

Psalm 100 as a Psalm of Thanksgiving and Praise

We'll praise God. It's a joy to worship. Let us turn to Psalm 100. Here we have a psalm of thanksgiving, or you can call it a psalm of praise. But it's preferably called a psalm of thanksgiving, and it is the only psalm in the collection to bear in this title.

It speaks of an invitation to the whole earth to know and to worship God. That's its focus. G. Campbell Morgan says it is a jubilant with confidence for the whole earth as it contemplates the glory of that earth and when all its people are submitted to the reign of Jehovah.

And that's pretty much the backdrop of this wonderful psalm of praise, a psalm of thanksgiving. So, hear the word of the Lord. Turn to the right chapter here. Aren't you glad for God's word this morning?

Five short verses, but believe me, it's loaded. Just like Psalm 23, you have six verses. But so much truth is packed within these words. Believe me, I will not finish. So, we're going to get and glean what we can.

Hear the word of the Lord. Verse 1. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness and 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.

For 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 and His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations.

May God richly bless His word this morning from our ears to our hearts.

Let's pray.

Father, we come to You again and we recognize, Lord, this is Your word. This is Your holy word. May we be in submission to it. There is nothing that compares to it. You even said in Your word, Father, that You have exalted Your word above Your name.

And You have exalted Your name so far above the heavens, it's beyond our imagination. But yet, You have exalted Your word above Your name. Lord, that humbles us. We tremble before it. We pay homage to it.

We submit to it.

Help us, Lord, to love it more. Because when we love Your word, we love You. Because You are the God of the word. And with Your word is Your character and Your integrity and everything that You are. Thank You, Father, that You preserved it for us.

That we may know You better and closer. Father, may Your blessed spirit do its work. And may Your word be glorified in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. This wonderful hymn of praise has so much in it. It's neatly divided into two sections.

Again, I'm just going to scratch the surface and there's going to be a lot here. But I'm going to go as rapid as I possibly can. First of all, there's a call to praise the Lord. A call to praise the Lord in verses 1 -3.

A, we are to praise the Lord joyfully in verse 1. And then B, we are to serve the Lord with gladness in verse 2A. And in verse 2B, we are to worship the Lord with singing. And in D, we are to recognize the Lord as God for His mighty power in verse 3.

This whole psalm is a call to invitation. To come and praise and thank the Lord with gladness for His greatness and His mighty power. The second section is broken up in a call to thank the Lord. So, in the first three verses is a call to praise the Lord.

Then the second section of this is a call to thank the Lord. First to praise the Lord and then thank the Lord. In A, verses 4 -5, the first section, we are to enter into God's presence, that means His gates, with thanksgiving.

Verse 4A.

Then, B, we are to enter into God's courts with praise.

Verse 4B.

And then C, we are to give thanks unto Him and bless His holy name in verse 4A. Then this last verse basically answers the question, what do we thank God for? This is really to the point. In short and sweet, but it gets...

Isn't it amazing about God's word? It's so direct. And it's piercing like a sword. But it tells exactly what we are to praise God for. Notice, it's all about God's nature. One, we are to praise God for because the Lord is good.

The Lord is good. Second, we are to praise the Lord for His love endures forever. His love endures forever. And third, we are to praise the Lord because of His truth, His faithfulness, continues to generation to generation.

So all three great facts are eternal and they are unchanging about God and who God is. These are three reasons to thank and praise God that are not affected by our circumstances. No matter what our circumstances are, we can thank God for this.

That we can thank God that He is good. We can thank God that His love endures forever and ever. And we can thank God because of His truthfulness and His faithfulness that endures from generation to generation.

Beloved, if we get a hold of that, it will change your life. It will change our life forever and ever on the face of this planet until we move on into glory to praise and thank Him. Psalm 100 is a well-known psalm.

And here it emphasizes that the universal nature of God's kingship is before us. This psalm is a benediction to the series of all the psalms which are occupied with the Lord's kingdom rule. We see that in the Word of God.

And we also see which are in the chapters Psalm 93 and Psalm 95 through Psalm 100. It speaks of His royalty. It's a cluster of royal psalms. That's what it speaks of, royal psalms. This then is an awesome benediction to the praise, to praise God, the King of all the earth.

The King of kings, the Lord of lords. And from the cord, I like to put it, from the cord of David's heart in which he was the sweet singer of Israel, a man of God after his own heart. He was not perfect by no means, but he was a man of flesh.

And he was a man that sinned many times and he repented of his sin, but he had a heart after God. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit in his praise and worship to the King of glory here. And the full delightful praise of who God is in thanksgiving and in praise.

And he gave praise to the one who's worthy to receive glory and honor and power in thanksgiving. And that is the God of glory, the King of glory. And he knew how to thank God. He knew how to thank God.

And this was the triune God, by the way. And you can see this in the Scriptures that He's just not... The Scripture does say that the Lord is one, but He is one God in three persons. We know what the Scripture teaches in this.

The God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that created all things. And by His will and His desire, they exist and they are created. That's what the Word of God says. Now, most of Psalm 100 is a call to praise and worship.

We're going to scratch the surface on that. But I pray that we get enough of it here that it really does work on our heart. That really transforms our life because that's really what we need. We need to leave here from this little home.

Thank you, Ben and Hannah, for opening up your home for us to worship in. But we need to allow the Word of God to take a hold of us and lay hold of us and to change us. So here we have praise and worship and thanksgiving.

You know, we can't do enough of that. Praise, worship, and thanksgiving.

Let's look at it.

So verse 3 and verse 5 gives us the very fixed reasons for that worship. Psalm 100 is a descriptive manual of worship.

That's what it gives us.

Worship as the Chief End of Man and the Beauty of Holiness

It's a manual of worship. And it's short and sweet. By the way, this is the psalm, Psalm 100, that the pilgrims and the Puritans chose when they came and set foot on this land, the United States, years ago.

And I started to read that, but there was so much. If you look it up, there was so much afflictions and hardships and trials they went through.

Death.

It was unbelievable. But when they set foot on this land, America, this is the psalm that they chose. It was Psalm 100. The old 100s, they called it. And they praised God. They fell on their faces. They fell on their knees and they worshiped God.

And this is the short, wonderful psalm, a psalm that they sung to the Lord when they came here. We are people of worship. God has created us to worship. He has bought us off the slave market of sin and redeemed us for the purpose of worship.

What is the chief end of man? Is to enjoy God, to glorify God, right? Glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

That's the catechism.

And that is based upon Scripture. We don't preach catechism, but we do preach Scripture. But the catechism reflects what the Scripture says. And that's the purpose. Go back to Genesis. God made Adam. He put him in the garden to have intimate fellowship with Him.

And Adam was to worship his God. And the Scripture says that God visited him in the cool of the day and had a relationship with him. We know what broke that relationship. Sin came in and just totally put a wall up.

And man, he was run out of the garden. And since then, there's been a separation. But the only one that can reconcile us is the Lord Jesus Christ, our God. And He has done that by the work of the cross.

So we're going to see.

So we are people of worship, true worshipers that worship God in spirit and in truth and in the beauty of His holiness. Psalm 30 verse 4 exhorts God's people to do what? To sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness.

His holiness is an attribute of attributes, by the way. This is what needs to be recovered in the church once again. Psalm 27 verse 4 speaks of the beauty of the Lord. The beauty of the Lord in which is none other than the beauty of God's holiness.

You know, if there's any beauty that we need to see of God, it is His holiness. His holiness shines brighter. And I like what R .C. Sproul says. It's just not another attribute among God.

It is His very essence.

If you notice in Scripture that the angels and the awful creatures that God created never say mercy, mercy, mercy. God is merciful. Yes, He is. But they never say that continually. They never say love, love, love.

They never say faithful, faithful, faithful. You could point out all the attributes. But the one thing that they do say is holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

There's a reason for that.

He is the thrice holy God. And this is what needs to be recovered among us today. The Puritan S. Carnot put it this way. And I love this quote. Power is God's hand or His arm. Omniscience is His eye.

Mercy is His bowels, His compassions.

Eternity is His duration. But holiness is His beauty. That is so, so true. And we need to capture that. According to 2 Chronicles 20, 21, God appointed singers of Israel. God always has His singers, doesn't He?

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

They did.

They sung unto God. And this is what the Scripture says in 2 Chronicles 20, verse 21. That should praise, what? The beauty of His holiness. God, that's the one thing. The reason why God appointed singers was to praise the beauty of His holiness.

And that's how God brought deliverance to them.

For them.

Not only are they covenant people. And God always keeps His word. Because when He makes a covenant, God will keep it. Man's been unfaithful.

God remains faithful always to His word.

But God appointed singers for them.

Why?

The Holy Scripture says when He had consulted with the people. This is what the word says. He appointed those who sang to the Lord and those who praised Him with His holy attire. As they went out before the army and said, Give thanks to the Lord for His loving kindness is everlasting.

I'm going to have to really speak loud. Heather is in competition against me here. We who are God's redeemed have a song of praise, don't we? A song of praise and thanksgiving.

Why?

Because of His loving kindness. Why? Because His loving kindness, His mercy endures forever.

His hesed.

I think I pronounced that right. That's the Hebrew for mercy. His loving kindness. It's everlasting. You see this all through the songs and Scripture. Only those that were clothed in holy attire, by the way, symbolic of sacred clothing, the righteousness of Jesus Christ, can worship God acceptably.

I believe that. Don't you? Only those who really know Jesus Christ and those who are dressed in the robe of Jesus' righteousness can worship God acceptably. No other way. God accepts only worship that is dressed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

To honor His holiness. Well, Psalm 100 is full of holy praise to our great King. Psalm 100 shouts God's praise. Let me just give you some things I've noticed. Verse 1. Worship is direct. It's very direct.

Notice. Notice. Who's it directed unto? Unto the Lord. Verses 1 and 2, worship is active. Verse 3, worship is knowledgeable. Verse 4, worship is thankful. Verse 5, worship is justified. You have it active, knowledgeable, thankful, and justified.

The first three verses of this wonderful psalm of praise and thanksgiving for God's faithfulness to His people gives to us an open invitation. First, notice how God always begins. He always gives the invitation for people to come.

Come.

This is the way God invites us to come before Him and to come into His presence. It's a call to praise the Lord. And again, to praise Him joyfully, to serve the Lord with gladness. We're to come before the Lord with singing.

And we are to, and this is important here, to know. To know.

There's education.

There's knowledge that the Lord, He is God for His mighty power and His deeds. Now, that kind of knowledge is the knowledge of the truth, of course, because a person can have a form of godliness, deny the power thereof.

He can quote scripture.

The devil is one of the greatest theologians. And by the way, the Puritan says, know this, that the devil is a better theologian than you are. But the difference is, he has an evil heart. You don't see anything in scripture that Satan submits to the authority of the Lord, does he?

Actually, it's an opposition. He's in rebellion against God. And he definitely does not have a heart of thanksgiving, does he? He has a heart of hate to slander God. Opposite of that, God's people gives thanks to the Lord for all that He is, for His nature, for His goodness, for His mercy, His loving kindness, His everlasting truth and dearest to our generation.

So, if verse 1 through 3 calls us into the presence to praise Him joyfully with singing, then verses 4 and 5 calls God's people to give thanks for Him, for His goodness and His compassion. I love the way this chapter is really broken up in these five verses.

It's so wonderful. So, verses 1 through 3 gives us the invitation to worship. And verse 4 through 5 tells us why we will worship Him.

The why of worship.

Psalm 100 actually gives us ways of worship. Again, it could be broken up. Verses 1 and 2 tells us what to do. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing.

Verse 4 tells us where to go. Into His presence with thanksgiving and praise. Don't you love this? It tells us what to do.

Verse 4, where to go.

Then verse 3 through 5 tells us what to know. What we know helps us who we to worship. Who do we worship? And John 4 speaks of that. Jesus says, we know, speak of the Jewish people,.

We know who we worship.

We know.

We know this.

The Lord is God. He has made us. We are His people if we are regenerated. And we are the sheep of His pasture. Now, there's a lot to say, first of all, about a call to praise to the Lord. Verses 1 through 3.

Verses 1 through 3. Let me read it once again. Because here is the richness of this call to worship. To worship our God. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

All ye lands.

A cheerfulness with all your hearts. A joyful noise. That means a shout unto the Lord. All ye lands. God wants this to be known, in other words. Not to be silenced. You know, people are to hear us. God's people are known by their singing.

And praising God. It's a repetition of Psalm 98 verse 4. Psalm 98 verse 4 says,. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. All ye earth. Make a loud noise. Rejoice and praise. Sing praise. And the original word signifies a glad shout.

Such as a loyal subject's gift to their king appears among them. A joyful shout means a shout of loyalty. It's a shout of homage. Psalm 66 verse 1 says,. Make a joyful shout to God all the earth.

That's the invitation.

Then Psalm 95 verse 1 gives the invitation. O come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. An example of this is 1 Samuel 10 verse 24. After Saul was chosen to be king, The prophet Samuel said to all the people, And listen to this.

Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? That there is no one like him among all the people? And so the people shouted and said, Long live the king. As the original Hebrew says, May the king live. So that's the way we are to shout for our king.

And when we do this, We're shouting and we're saying, Long live the king. Long live the king. We are his subjects.

Aren't you glad you're his subjects?

Aren't you glad he picked you? That humbles us.

Spurgeon said this,.

O happy God should be worshipped by happy people. A cheerful spirit is in keeping with his nature, His acts and the gratitude which we should cherish for his mercies. In every land Jehovah's goodness is seen.

Therefore in every land should be praised. Near will the world be in its proper condition Till with an anonymous shout it adores the only God. O ye nations, How long will you yet be blindly reject him?

Your golden age will never arrive Till ye with all your hearts revere him.

End quote.

Well, next we see that we're to serve the Lord with gladness. Serve the Lord with gladness. It is a glad homage paid with awful mirth, As one commentator said. He is our Lord, And therefore he is to be served.

And we gladly serve him. He is a gracious Lord, And therefore to be served with joy and gladness. You see this all through the book of Acts as well. There's joy. It was contagious. There was a glad heart.

Not a melancholy one. Not one that was sour. You know, a lot of these people that I've seen throughout the years of Christianity, and a lot of times in the churches, and I'm not trying to throw stones or anything, but you've seen them.

I think to myself, you know, I look like this lady just ate a lemon. She's so soured up. Like that. And I'm thinking, put a smile on your face lady. You've got a reason to smile. You've got a reason to be happy.

Because God has redeemed you. You know, you think about what the world thinks about seeing people like that. Sour and always complaining and murmuring. No wonder God hates murmuring. The opposite of that is thanksgiving and praise.

That doesn't mean that we can't be real. We have burdens as well. I'm not saying that. And there's times to weep. And weep with those that weep, right? But to be glad with those that are glad as well.

But I'm talking about the face of the church. And they should bear a gladness and a joy. That's the way we should be, because we've got a reason for it. Solomon says, come before His presence with singing.

Singing.

Now, we're singing. We're practicing, but we make a joyful noise, right? And we're going to keep on singing. We try singing. We may not be the best singers, but we're going to sing to the Lord. And that's why we sing.

We sing unto the Lord. We're to worship the Lord with singing.

That's part of it.

It's not the only way we can worship God, but that is a part of worship, with singing. We ought to worship to realize when we do worship the presence of God and be in conscience that the Lord is always present.

His presence is everything. He's here. And we never should forget that. God is among us. His presence is here. And His presence is what really matters. He's a very present help in times of trouble, Scripture says.

We're also to recognize the Lord is God for His mighty power. Know ye that the Lord is God, and the Lord He is God, and it is He that has made us, and that not we ourselves. We are His people. Isn't that beautiful?

His people, the sheep of His pasture. And again, worship is to be intelligent, not to be ignorant. We ought to know why and who we worship.

Jesus said this,.

And I referred to it quickly a moment ago,.

But John 4, verse 21 through 24, Jesus said unto her, the woman at the well, Believe me, Jesus said, that the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship the Father ye worship you know not what.

Now she was outside of the covenant of God.

But we, speaking of the Jewish people,.

We know,.

We know what we worship.

For salvation is of the Jews.

But the hour cometh, and now is,.

When the true worshippers.

Shall worship the Father in spirit and truth. Isn't that a great revelation? For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must, I love that, Jesus put that right there,.

Must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

The only way we can worship God, it must be a must. It must be in spirit and in truth. So Psalm 95, 6 and 7, O come let us worship, bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.

And that's pretty much what the scripture says. Now I want you to notice something else here about this invitation to worship. And this may conceal the wonder of it, but for the courts are truly God's.

His courts.

I think about this quite often. When we come into His courts, no one rushes into the courts before a king. You know, you're going to have a strong rebuke coming to you. As a matter of fact, Michael's right, you may just have your head taken off.

It's just such disrespect to a king. If someone did that, it would enter their mind. Absolutely. We tread His courts with reverence and respect. And when we come before His courts, but it says here that we are to come before His courts.

With thanksgiving.

Notice what it says here.

We're truly His.

The gates are His.

By the way,.

We're going to talk about the courts.

And the gates a little bit here. Notice again with me that the old 100 is truly a psalm.

That's focused on God.

That's what I love about this. God and God alone.

Now notice this with me.

Look at the verses with me. Eight times the word His appears.

His.

Notice this. Verse 2.

Come before His presence.

Verse 3.

We are His people.

Verse 3. And the sheep of His pasture.

Verse 4.

Into and to His gates.

Verse 4.

Into His courts.

Verse 4.

And bless His name. Verse 5. His mercy is everlasting. Verse 5. His truth endures to all generations. Now I don't know about you. That gives glory to God. Because it's all His.

His presence, His people,.

His pasture, His gates, His courts, His name, His mercy,.

His truth.

It's His.

Praise God,.

It's His.

And in verse 4, we are to enter His gates and His courts. Let's remember this solemn warning. An exhortation for Isaiah 112. And I set this before you because this is the proper way before we even come into His courts.

When Isaiah spoke this, he was dealing with a very rebellious Israel. A nation of Israel. And a hard-hearted Israel. They were very disobedient to the covenants of God. And this is what he told them.

And they were playing church, by the way. And this is what he said. When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand to tread my courts. He was giving the question there. Who has required you to tread my courts?

And the prophet's warning to the people of God is not to come before the Lord of hosts in the holy worship unless they are clean. Only then will worship be truly accepted. So they had to come before their hands had to be clean.

They had to have clean hands.

And a pure heart. So keep in mind that the gates of God.

And the courts are God's.

His gates are shut to the unclean.

It's shut out. And how do we know this? This is not my word.

This is God's word.

Revelation 21, 27 says, and there shall no wise enter,.

Listen to this,.

Enter into it, talking about God's gates, and anything that defiles, neither whatsoever worketh an abomination, anything that's an abomination, scriptures are very clear what those abominations are, and maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Those are the ones that has the rights to come. The ones that God has purchased with his own blood. Isn't that wonderful?

Yeah.

So only the chosen people of God, a holy nation,.

A royal,.

A priesthood, Peter called about that, those who have been called out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Shall praise his holiness.

They are the ones that will show forth God's praise. Those ones. Isaiah 35, 8 and 9 says, I love this. Oh, I love this. A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called.

The highway of holiness. The unclean,.

Listen to this,.

The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others.

Whosoever walks the road,.

Although a fool shall not go astray. Verse 9, and I love this. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it, and it shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.

Only those, beloved,.

Only those who have been purchased and washed in the blood of the lamb of the Lord Jesus Christ will be able to pass through the holy gates and the courts of God to worship and honor the King of glory, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Only those that have been cleaned in the blood of the lamb have the rights to enter into this holy courts. You know, I like what Raven Hewitt says, you know, if you've not been holy and cleaned up by the blood of Jesus, you're not going to like heaven.

Because, because, that's exactly right, because heaven is a holy city and it has holy angels and it's going to have holy people because it has a holy God. Everything about it is holy. That's our home, beloved.

We're passing through with strangers, where this world is not our home, but in the process, we're dealing with the sin. God's cleaning us up. The word of God is the agent. The blood of Jesus cleanses it, cleanses the sin out from us.

We're being sanctified. We go through the word of God, but it's the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit.

You know, J .C. Rowell said something to this effect. He said, you can call it whatever spirit you want to, but if there's uncleanness going on there, he said, there's nothing holy there.

It's the Holy Spirit.

And I've heard this so many times.

Among the Pentecostals,.

That, oh, that's a spirit. And I said, yeah, it's a spirit, all right, but it sure wasn't the Holy Spirit. I mean, there's something erroneous and something spurious going on and something of the flesh and somebody's rolling around or jumping on the chandeliers, and I've seen it, beloved.

Yeah, but he got happy in God.

But I said, well, would Jesus do this?

I mean, is it the Holy Spirit? You could call it a spirit,.

But is it holy?

Well, most of the time, it's not. Well, the Bible has a lot to say about this invitation to enter into his gates for thanksgiving, doesn't it? Remember that this is an open invitation, a call to God's people, to the retaining.

But Jesus said this of this gate.

What did he say about this gate?

It's not crooked.

It's a straight gate.

Yeah.

This gate is very straight,.

And it's very narrow. And you know this.

The more I walk this journey with the Lord Jesus, I see it getting more narrow,.