A Psalm for Thanksgiving

The book of Psalms to this wonderful Psalter, Psalm 100. Psalm 100 is known as the old 100th. Our forefathers, our Puritans, the pilgrims, when they landed here on the Mayflower many years ago, this was the psalm that they chose as they set foot on this sod and as they planted here, they gave thanks to God and they turned to Psalm 100 and prayed this before the God of heaven.

And they spoke it out through many toils and storms and death and tribulations. But this is a wonderful psalm, it's one of my favorites. I've preached on it several times, but can I confess to you as I was studying this, God always gives me fresh bread.

When I am seeking His face and studying His Word, and I am refreshed this morning as I was studying this, that in my soul, that God has, it's not anything new, it's something that I believe that as we seek the Lord, that He helps us see into His Word to mine these great truths.

And I just praise God this morning as I was studying these wonderful five verses. And isn't it amazing, I was speaking to Mr. Lillian about this, that some of the greatest psalms, it's not the lengthy psalms now, I can't take anything away from Psalm 119, the Mount Everest of all psalms, you cannot mine the depths of that psalm.

But let me say here, some of the shortest of psalms has such depth as well. And this is one with great depth. And as I read this, please stand with me, please, in honor of God's Word. This is a psalm, it's a psalm of praise to the Lord's faithfulness to His people, it is a psalm of thanksgiving.

It is a psalm, as far as I know of, it's a psalm of David. So hear the Word of the Living God, beginning with verse 1, there's only five verses within this chapter, and we're going to look at all five.

By no means we will mine out the depths of it, we would just scratch the surface. But what the Lord has for us this morning, hear the Word of the Living God, beginning with verse 1. Make a joyful shout to the Lord all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God. It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him and bless His name.

For the Lord is good.

His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations. May God bless the reading of His holy word to our hearts this morning. Let us seek His face now within this hour, as we look for help by His Holy Spirit and to His revelation and to His eternal word this morning.

Our Father, our hearts are warmed by what we've already heard this morning, that You are the one and true Living God, and there's none other.

There's none beside You, Father.

Great and glorious in holiness are You. Your name is to be hallowed. And so, Father, we pray that within this hour, we, by Your Holy Spirit, will hallow Your holy name. Glorify Your most holy name. As we look into Your eternal word, Father, Your Holy Spirit must do the work, because man, the flesh, the arm of flesh, cannot bring about the truth.

It is only Your Holy Spirit that gives us and shows and reveals to us the truth found in Your word. So, Father, we praise You, we praise Your name, we magnify Your name. Father, we love You. And, Lord, we desire to love You more.

Even if our love and faith is small, Father, we want this to grow. So, Father, as we adore You, we glorify You, we praise You, and we ask, Lord, that Your blessed Holy Spirit will teach us. Father, it comes to my mind, Father, only You can open our deaf ears that we may hear Your holy word.

Father, only You can open our blinded eyes that we may behold the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And most important, Father, as we look to the Lamb of God, who is the most important, we ask You, Father, to open our minds and our hearts that we may perceive and understand Your truth.

And Your truth will make us free, free from sin, for Your sake. And we pray this for Your glory, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. As you well know, in the Westminster Catechism and the Shorter Catechism, question one, as always, comes to my mind, is my very favorite.

The question is this, what is the chief end demand? Aren't you glad? Amen. It's a simple question, and it has a simple answer. But it is so deep, and it is so profound. Man's chief end is to glorify God.

And, it doesn't stop there, enjoy Him. Enjoy Him forever, just not now, but forever. And our reason for being, our reason for you and I exist this morning, is creatures of the dirt, created by God, is for God.

That's the reason why we exist, is for God and God alone. Brother Keith quoted it this morning, as the poets spoke of in Acts 17. In Him we live and move and have our being. Paul took that and preached Christ, and preached to one true living God.

They didn't know what God they were worshipping, but Paul gave to them the gospel, the true living God. To worship God, and God alone, beloved, this morning, is the single most important thing in our life.

And to worship Him acceptably, to worship Him correctly, to worship Him in spirit and truth. In this classic sermon, and he wrote a book from it too, they wrote a printed sermon, A .W. Tozer in the worship, called Worship the Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church.

It sounds like it's still a missing jewel. That jewel's never been found, has it? It's still missing. A .W. Tozer said this, Why did Christ come? Why was He conceived? Why was He born? Why was He crucified?

Why did He rise again? Why is He now at the right hand of the Father? Wonderful questions. And the answer to these questions, and he says, the answer to these questions is, and don't forget this, in order that He might make worshipers out of rebels.

In order that He might restore us again to the place of worship we knew when we were first created. End quote. Beloved, that shakes me up. That stirs me up. This is why Jesus came. He came to save us just not from hell, but to make worshipers out of us.

He's going to have worshipers. He's going to have people abroad that's going to worship Him and glorify Him and praise Him. Oh, this is wonderful. After Jesus made His glorious, triumphant entry in Jerusalem, in the Gospel of Luke chapter 19, 37 -40, the Gospel record of Luke says this, and as He was now drawing near to the descent of the Mount of Olives, He was coming down from the Mount of Olives, and there was a whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen in Jesus Christ.

They glorified God.

Because of all what Jesus Christ was doing. He went about doing good, healing the sick, cleansing the leper, opening up deaf ears and blinded eyes.

And this is what they said,.

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And in verse 39, it's interesting,.

The Scripture says,.

And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd. Basically, they came up to Jesus, and you could see a small group of them. They said, Teacher. Notice they called Him Teacher. They never called Him Lord and Master.

Teacher, rebuke your disciples. And how did Jesus respond? He answered and said to them, I tell you that if these keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out. Did you hear that? Even the stones would praise Him.

God will be praised. He will be praised. The Bible even says the trees even clapped their hands. All the earth will praise God. All of His created beings will praise Him. God will be glorified.

Amen.

All of creation is created to worship and glorify God. And even man that has fallen to cause of sin, and God aims to restore man in redemption to worship God in the highest. Psalm 100, beloved, is a psalm of praise and thanksgiving to God.

It's a psalm of worship. It's a well-known psalm that emphasizes the universal nature of God's kingship. That God is king. It's a psalm that is a benediction, by the way, to the series of psalms which are occupied in the Lord's kingdom rule, which are in Psalm 93, Psalm 95, and through Psalm 100, which is a benediction of those royal psalms.

So we have a cluster, if you don't mind me saying, a cluster of royal psalms from Psalm 93 to Psalm 99, and then this awesome Psalm 100 is this benediction of praise to God as the king, the king of glory.

It comes from the cord of David's harp, I believe. David was known as the sweet singer of Israel. He was a man after God's own heart, and he's inspired by God Himself, through the Holy Spirit, to praise and to worship the king of glory, full of delightful thanksgiving and praise to the one who's worthy to receive glory and honor and power and thanksgiving, for He created all things by His will, as Revelation says, and by His will, by His desire, they exist, they were created, and that's what God desires is worship and praise.

He's going to have it. So most of this wonderful Psalm 100 is a call to praise and worship. It's a psalm of thanksgiving. While verse 3 and verse 5 give to us the very reasons for that worship, Psalm 100 is the descriptive manual on worship.

This is the way I like to look at Psalm 100. Today, we're going to look at the manual of worship. This tells us how to worship. And this is why God saves us, beloved, as Tozer said, to make rebels, worshipers out of rebels, to make us worshipers, to love and to adore Him.

And we have to have a manual. This is our manual. And Psalm 100 is a wonderful psalm that teaches us how to worship. The Father seeks true worshipers, to worship Him in spirit and truth, to worship Him acceptable.

Psalm 30 verse 4 says this, Exhorts God's people to sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. It is His holiness that is attribute of attributes. We just did a study on that.

And I cannot get my mind away from it. I can't wrap my mind around it. Because His holiness is too great. But Psalm 27 verse 4 speaks of the beauty of the Lord, which is none other than His holiness. Psalm 110 verse 3 says, Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power.

Well, listen to that.

Volunteers in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning you have due of your youth. Puritan Stephen Cronin put it this way, Power is God's hand or arm. Omniscience is His eye.

Mercy is His bowels. Eternity is His duration. But holiness is His beauty. Don't you love those Puritans? They can say it just right. I get ahold of a verse, and at times I ask Brother Keith, tell me what Matthew Henry says, and he always takes me a seatbelt.

In other words, fasten your seatbelts. And you know Matthew Henry, he will plunge to depths and squeeze every drop of juice out of that fruit. Well, according to 2 Chronicles chapter 20 verse 21, God appointed singers in Israel.

Just to let you know how important this is. God appointed singers. He told the prophet, and the prophet told the king. And it comes from God,.

And God says,.

You appoint singers unto me that should praise the beauty of His holiness. So why did God appoint singers for this? You ever thought about that? Well, the answer is given in 2 Chronicles 20 verse 21.

Listen to this.

And when He had consulted with the people, He appointed those who should sing to the Lord and should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army and were saying, Praise the Lord for His mercy endures forever.

Amen.

That was the battle cry. Beloved, that is your battle cry. That is my battle cry. That is what we are to say. Praise the Lord for His mercy endures forever. God inhabits the praises of His people. And beloved, this is the battle song of the redeemed.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

Let the world hear us.

We have a song of praise and we have a song of thanksgiving. Because God is a God of mercy. God is in His loving kindness toward us who is unworthy, has redeemed us by His grace and by faith and through His love and His chesed, His loving kindness, His mercy, His compassion.

And the Bible says it's everlasting. And only those who are redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ washed in His wonderful and precious blood is dressed in the cloth of holy attire as they appointed singers.

This is symbolic of a sacred setting apart clothing which is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And only through that dressed in the righteousness of Jesus can we acceptably worship God. God accepts only worship that is by faith through the blood of Jesus.

I can promise you that. No other kind of worship is going to do before God. It must be through the perfect righteousness of Jesus. It must be through the washed blood of Jesus. It must be through Jesus and Jesus alone.

So I will stand by this until the day I die and go home to be with the Lord. There's a lot of worship going on today, beloved, but it must be by faith and it must be in the blood and through the blood of Christ.

Nothing else is going to do to the praise and the honor of His holiness. And as we look at this wonderful Psalm 100 this morning, we have the manual of how to worship and praise God acceptably. Psalm 100, it literally shouts praises to God.

Beloved, I say this respectfully. There's been thousands and thousands of books written by godly men on worship and I do not put that down. I read them. Read good books. But as Spurgeon says, live in the Bible.

And can I say this? Even good books that have been written on worship that encourages us and stirs us and blesses us and teaches us. Godly men, but can I say this in all due respect, beloved? That even all those books compiled together of all the knowledge of worship don't even come close to these five verses found in the Word of God.

Psalm 100 in these five verses teaches us more about worship. If you will break it down verse by verse and precept by precept and meditate on what God has laid out before us, I promise you, you will be just swimming in the depths of the sea of worship.

This is God's manual on worship. I'm excited about this and what I got to tell you this morning is so wonderful. Notice in verse 1, worship is directed. It's direct. How do we know this? It's directed unto the Lord.

It says in verse 1, make a joyful shout to the Lord. All you lands. Worship is active. It's not passive. Worship is active. Look at verse 2. Serve the Lord with gladness. We are to serve Him.

Him.

Come before His presence with singing. Can I say to you that worship is also knowledgeable? It's not ignorance. It's not ignorant. It does not lack knowledge, beloved. It's the knowledge of the Holy One.

There is a knowledge in truth. Verse 3, know that the Lord, He is God. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Worship is also thankful. Notice in verse 4, enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him and bless His name. Worship is also justified. Verse 5, for the Lord is good.

It's an attribute.

All these attributes of God, His goodness, His mercy is everlasting. His truth endures to all generations. It goes on and on. It never stops. Even when you and I are dead and gone, it continues. It's not about us anyway.

It's all about God. God and God alone. This psalm can be divided up into two sections. We're going to try to look at this. The first section, number one, is a call to praise the Lord. There's a call to praise God.

That call is an invitation to come before Him. So first, we as God's people are to praise the Lord joyfully. Second, we are to serve the Lord with gladness. And third, we are to come before the Lord with singing and we are to know that the Lord is God for His mighty power and His deeds.

The second section is a call to thanksgiving unto the Lord, to thank Him. Notice, praise and thanksgiving. You cannot separate those two.

It is so critical.

We're to praise Him, give thanks to Him, but we're also to love Him and adore Him and serve Him. And it says, if verse 1 through 3 calls us into His presence to praise Him joyfully with singing, then verse 4 and 5, God calls us to thank Him for His everlasting goodness and mercy.

Notice this, goodness and mercy.

Have you heard that before?

Psalm 23, 6. David said this and he said, surely, he knew this. Surely, he didn't doubt it. Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell. Are you dwelling this morning? Dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

It's not talking about a temporary earthly temple. He's talking about the eternal God temple where God is. Verse 1 through 3 gives us the invitation to worship, the call to come and worship and praise Him.

Verse 4 and 5 tells us and instructs us in righteousness how to worship and why we worship. It gives us how to worship and why we worship.

Aren't you glad?

Verse 1 and 2 tells us what to do. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Two, serve the Lord with gladness. Three, come before His presence with thanksgiving. Verse 4 tells us where to go. Into His presence with thanksgiving and praise Him.

Verse 3 and 5 tells us what to know. One, what do we know?

Listen to this.

Number one, we know that the Lord is God. Number two, we know that it is He that has made us. He's the creator. Three, we know that we are His people. We are adopted. We're part of the family of God. Four, we know that we are the sheep of His pasture.

Fifth, we know that the Lord is good. Sixth, we know that His mercy is everlasting. And seventh, last, know that His truth endures to all generations. Now you put that to your knower and you got some knowledge.

There's wisdom.

That's heavenly wisdom. Notice the simplicity of all this wonderful call to worship. But oh, the depth of the wonder and the amazement of it. That may God may amaze us and that we may be lost in His love and praise Him and His majesty and love Him for who He is and glorious in holiness.

Because He is.

Awesome psalm. This is a focus on God and God alone. Don't you love this? How the word of God just takes us. You know, when you read good books, I've been reading J .C. Rowell's book on holiness and I really learned so much.

And he always brings out scripture and he brings out the truth and he rightly divides the word of truth and it convicts me. But when I open this book, beloved, I don't converse with man. I converse with Almighty God.

It is the eternal word of God and every time we read it, you are in touch with God if God's in touch with you. There's a communion that's going on.

God is speaking.

Oh, this is wonderful. The gates are His. Notice this. Everything about, it's all, this whole psalm is about God. Everything is His. The gates are His. His eight times. Let me say this. Eight times His, the word His, speaking of God, appears speaking of God.

The gates are His. Come before His presence. His presence. We are His people. In verse 3, verse 3 again, and the sheep of His pasture. 4, verse 4, enter into His gates. Notice 5, verse 4, into His courts.

6, verse 4, bless His name. Verse 5, His mercy is everlasting. And 8, in verse 5, His truth endures to all generations. So it's, let me see if I can get that again. It's His presence. We are His people.

We are the sheep of His pasture. We are to enter into His gates. We are, and into His courts. And to bless His name. And His mercy is everlasting. And His truth endures to all generations.

It's His.

That's a divine order that's commanded from the word of God.

There is a command.

And God's people have a call to worship and praise Him. Well, let's go through this. Verse 1 says this. Make a joyful shout, or a joyful noise, another translation should be, to the Lord. God's people to praise the Lord joyfully.

Joyfully. Not grudgingly.

But delightfully.

Joyfully. This verse sets the tone for the whole psalm. It calls God's people to shout for joy to the Lord. And that Lord is capitals. It is Yahweh. Shout for joy to the Lord. The Hebrew verb for this is make a joyful shout.

And it's a highly charged up command for public praise. The command is addressed just not to Israel. Notice this. But to who? All the lands. The whole earth. I'm telling you, God desires praise. This command is a repetition of Psalm 98, 4.

And I read this to you. It says, shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth. Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. You know, the original Hebrew here signifies meaning a glad shout to God. Such a legal, but not only legal, it is for lowly subjects.

And it's to loyal subjects give when their king appears before them. This was a custom. That when the subjects of a kingdom, and when the king would come before them,.

They would shout, long live the king.

It was a shout to the Lord. And this is what God is saying here to His loyal and faithful subjects. And Psalm 66, 1 says this. Make a joyful shout to God all the earth. Calling for all the earth to praise the living God.

Psalm 95, 1. O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. So it's an invitation to come to worship God with tremendous energy and delight. And here's the example that comes to my mind.

And you are well familiar with this. When Israel wanted a king, and they had a king, was God. But they wanted a king that they could see, like everybody else. Well, God says, I'm going to give you a king.

And it was God that gave him a king. It was God that ordained Saul. Read it. He was no accident. So God gave them what they wanted. And God even picked them to teach them a lesson. So the example of this is found in 1 Samuel 10, verse 24.

Listen to this.

After Israel wanted a king to be like other nations, the word of God says this. Saul is chosen to be Israel's king. The prophet Samuel said to the people, Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? That there is no one like him among the people.

And so the people did this.

What did they do?

They shouted.

They shouted and said, Long live the king. Long live the king. The original Hebrew says, May the king live. That was their custom. So God is the great king of kings. He's the king of all the earth. Should not we blow the trumpet and sigh and say, Long live the king?

Yes. See, Spurgeon, a wonderful preacher, says this about joyful worship. Quote,. Our happy God should be worshipped by a 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. Now listen to what he says here. Never will the world be its proper condition till with an anonymous shout, it adores the only God.

Oh, you nations, how long will you blindly reject him? Your golden age will never arrive till ye with all your hearts reverent him. Revere him. End quote. The next verse, in verse 2, it says, Serve the Lord with gladness.

Come before his presence with thanks. I'm sorry, come before his presence with singing. He is the Lord, and therefore he is to be served with joy. And with the same kind of joy as though we were bidden to a marriage feast of celebration, not a funeral service.

That's the way God wants to be praised. You wouldn't know that. Nowadays, the way people and God's people worship, it's dead and dry, there's no fire, there's no light, but God desires us to worship him.

And that's got to be in spirit and truth, and it's got to be orderly, and there's no chaos in it. God is a God of order and not confusion. But he desires to be worshipped from the heart joyfully, with praise and thanksgiving.

We are to come before his presence with singing. And we believe in that, don't we? And with the same, with joy in our hearts to the Lord. Do you come before God in your quiet time and sing? Now, I'm not much a singer, but I know this, when I'm singing praises to God, God's okay with it, because I may not be carrying a tune to everybody else, but God is loving to hear me sing.

As long as I'm in harmony in the spirit with him. And singing from my hearts. Making melody in our hearts to the Lord. God sings over you, why should not we sing to him? If God the creator sings over the creature, how much more shall the creature come in his presence singing to him?

Oh my, we fall so short of this, don't we? But may God stir us this morning to sing more in his presence. When we come and bow in his presence, and come into his presence with singing and loving and adoring him.

Verse 3 tells us what to know, beloved. What do we know?

The text says this,.

Know that the Lord, he is God. I can stop right there and preach to the Bible.

He is God.

And there's no other God but God. He's the God of all gods. Small g. The big g is over all the g's. Small g's. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We need to realize this. People don't realize this.

They think they just popped out of nowhere or came from an ape or a moiva. Or some kind of molecule that we just know. It's foolishness to think of such a thought. It is he who has made us, not we ourselves.

We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Beloved, can I say this? That there's reasons that we are to be glad in the Lord. And here's the reasons. Let's look at the reasons. God is reasonable. The first reason is that unlike the gods, the small gods, g, small italics, g, of surrounding nations, Yahweh, the Lord, he is God.

It makes me think of when Elijah gathered up the sacrifice and he doused it with water. There was a lack of water. Where did he get the water? Probably from the sea because the sea was nearby. So he doused it with sea salt water.

And there was a challenge on Mount Carmel that day. And you know the story. And all the pagan false worshippers, he let them go first. They did their thing all day long and they cut themselves and it was bloody.

They were so desperate to hear their God answer by fire. And this was the challenge. Elijah, the man of God, the prophet of fire, challenged him. The God that answers by fire, let him be God. Let him be Lord.

And they all day cut themselves with knives and blood and nothing. And Elijah was back mocking them. And that's appropriate because they didn't believe in the true living God. They had false gods and gods of their own making.

He says, maybe your God's off somewhere. Maybe he's on a vacation or something. That's basically what he was saying. Maybe he was mocking them. And then Elijah steps up and it's almost dark. It's basically dark by then.

This is all day.

Those false prophets were trying to call on their God to answer by fire. Never answered. And here's the sacrifice. And it's getting dark. You can picture it at dusk or dark.

And he says a short prayer.

It wasn't a long prayer.

A short prayer.

And what happened? It says fire came out of heaven. Licked up the sacrifice. Licked up the rocks on the altar. Licked up the wood. It is as fire came down from heaven. And all of Israel that was there seeing this challenge before these false prophets.

And then what happens? And then all of them shouted and they fell down on their faces. And they said, the Lord is God.

The Lord is God.

It's amazing.

God answered by fire. After all, He does answer by fire. He's a consuming fire. He burns up the shaft with unquenchable fire. Oh, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But God is the one true living God, right?

And that was proven that day. And God's going to prove it again on the day of judgment. When He comes back in fire and burns the earth up with unquenchable fire. The second reason is, it is He who has made us.

He is the creator God, right? Notice that worship is to the one true and living God. And can I say this here? Paul mentioned about, let this be your reasonable act of worship. It is reasonable. It is intelligent worship.

It's not ignorant worship. As brother Keith pointed out this morning in Acts 17. It's not an ignorant. But it even says there that God even overlooked the times of ignorance. He showed mercy even that.

But this is not ignorant worship. We ought to know this. We ought to know whom we worship and why we worship. Can I give you a chapter and verse on this? Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke this truth to a prostitute at the well of Jacob.

In John chapter 4 verse 21 through 24, Jesus saith unto her, woman, he said, believe me, the hour is coming when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship the Father you worship you know not what.

In other words, you worship in ignorance. You don't even know what you worship or who you worship. But Jesus is a king of the Jews being Jewish. He says, we know what we worship. We know for salvation is of the Jews.

And then Jesus gave us one of the most clearest definition of God ever recorded in the pages of scripture to a woman at the well, a prostitute at the well that was in need of grace. And then he said, but the hour comes, is coming.

And now is when the true worshipers, listen to that, the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth. They will worship God. And then he says, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.

God is a spirit and they that worship Him must, listen to that, there it is, that must, must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Praise God. That's another psalm that ties into this Psalm 8. I think about worship.

Psalm 8 says, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth, who has set your glory above the heavens. And out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants, you have ordained strength because your enemies that you may silence the enemy and the avenger.

And when I consider, listen to this psalmist. This is David, sweet singer of Israel.

He's singing this.

When I consider your heavens and the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of man that you would visit him. Oh, God is so great and awesome.