Giving Thanks as a Response to God’s Grace

So hopefully I have the right microphone turned on here. So it's good to be here.

Good to see all of you I think that either I forget how many young people are here

But there's more young people here than I expect and it's good. That's a good sign.

It's a sign of God's grace on your church There's a few churches.

I visited over the years that my perception I'm not a good guesser of people's ages

But as I look around my guess is that half the people are older than I am And if I'm 76 and you know, that's kind of a scary thought so it's good to see so many young people here and you know just to I Do pray regularly for I have a list of different pastors different churches and I pray regularly for your church and for your pastor and Two elders here and just for your grace that you'd be faithful My sense is this is a difficult time for Churches for God's work in our country and that we need to be praying for God's work in our country

I think that's where it all begins is prayer I'm gonna just begin with a word of prayer and then launch forth here in the message as well

Let's begin with a word of prayer our Father We thank you for who you are. We thank you for your goodness and grace in our lives and pray that you take your word

Apply it to our lives and hearts. We give you this day. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen So what we're looking at today is a fairly simple fairly well -known psalm

And the question I have is what can we learn from a familiar psalm like this?

My wife and I have been reading the book of Psalms in our family devotions for years now

We have personal devotions just individually ourselves to do our own thing But then we also have family devotions which at this point there's two of us empty nesters

And it's just the two of us, but we read God's Word together pray together Share some other things together

So that we've been reading through the Psalms Both in our regular reading of God's Word individually as well as reading them corporately

And I think if there's a book of scripture that has ministered more to me more recently it's been the book of Psalms so Here's a psalm that the first title

I read is a psalm of praise for the Lord's faithfulness to his people and If you're like me giving thanks or obedience to God in general doesn't always come easy

Yes, we know that God tells us to be thankful One of the better -known verses in scripture about being thankful is 1st

Thessalonians 5 18 in everything Give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you

Maybe some of you are wondering what's God's will for your life part of it at least is giving thanks

But giving thanks is not always easy Yeah, especially when God allows bad or difficult things to happen in our lives

Can we still be thankful even in the midst of life's trials and difficulties?

Here is where our text for today can be helpful to us We make a just a passing comment the more that we believe in the sovereignty of God And I certainly believe in the sovereignty of God the more we will struggle with questions about why does

God allow some of the things? In our lives that he does allow Yesterday I was listening to an online message where one speaker was challenged us to believe in three things and to believe in these at the same time

God is good God is sovereign and life is sometimes hard and The reason that life is sometimes hard is

God's often doing things. We don't know or understand, but here's three things. God's good Sovereign and God is often doing things that at least to us seem hard and that this is

Not really the message for today, but it's related to it. How do we trust

God? How do we give him thanks when life is hard? So this is an introduction I want to look at our text for today in many of our

Bibles There's two different kinds of introductory titles to many of our Psalms For example a

New King James that was read earlier Translators have inserted their own label for this psalm a song of praise for the

Lord's faithfulness Excuse me for the Lord's faithfulness to his people. I often use the

ESV Bible and his titles as steadfast love endures forever Christian standard

Bible that's more of a Southern Baptist one is be thankful One copy of the

King James or authorized version. I looked at says a call to praise the Lord Other copies of King James may not say anything or may say something different New American Standard Bible I looked at said all men exhorted to praise

God One thing is true about this first title is that it's a creation of the

Bible translators At least or the addition or the editors of a particular study

Bible If you look at the original Hebrew text of Psalm 100, there are no

Hebrew words corresponding to this first title These labels are simply their creation of particular

Bible translators or Bible editors They're there to be helpful to us

They're like page numbers at the bottom of the page. The original authors didn't put page numbers on their

Manuscripts or Bible maps or cross references or I like to use a study

Bible the study notes at the bottom of the page These are not inspired God didn't give us those

So that let me make just a few comments about early manuscripts We're thinking about manuscripts in New Testament.

I was a professor taught New Testament the earliest Greek manuscripts that we could find

Have continuous lines of text paper is expensive. You don't put spaces between words

You don't put punctuation It's kind of a continuous stream of letters gets the end of line drop down word wrap down to the next line so it's just a continuous stream of letters so that How would you like to read a text like that?

That'd be kind of an extra challenge a lot of people in the ancient world often read out loud So they could hear it and see it at the same time so that As time went by a lot of the

Greek Manuscripts the editors Started inserting spaces between the words language was slowly changing even ancient

Greek biblical Greek And they started putting at least some limited punctuation there

If we look at the earliest Hebrew manuscripts one thing that's interesting about them is they have only consonants

And no vowels now Hebrew is a different language in English if we had a English text without any vowels

We think though this is pretty strange Maybe we could guess some of the words maybe we couldn't I don't know

Hebrew is a different language it works at least plausibly well in Hebrew without vowels so that You know if we're looking at the earliest manuscripts these are kind of bare -bones kinds of things so what we have in our

Bible translations today are a lot of study helps there's word spaces and there's punctuation and typesetting if something is poetry

There is such a thing as Hebrew poetry or Greek poetry, and we can recognize it It's like a lot of the

Psalms. It's kind of spaced out different than just prose It's kind of spaced out in lines and stanzas that kind of thing so that It can be helpful to us, but back to this idea of these titles

As these titles are inserted into many of our Bibles I often remember a comment that a woman made to me at church when

I was pastoring in Philadelphia This was before we moved to Massachusetts.

She told me she had found an error in the Bible Now she was a fairly new Christian not particularly well -taught in anything

But this was her sense and what she had done is she had read one of these little titles that was poked into the text at different points along the way and Even she could see this is not a

Accurate title for the section that follows it so that this was her thought how could

God inspire these little subtitles that are poked into our text of the Bible at different points along the way and The obvious answer is

God didn't inspire those. These are the work of The Bible translators that are there hopefully to help us

So I want us to be thankful for the progress It's been made in editing and translating the Bible as well as printing it with all kinds of study helps

And you go to buy a Bible to all kinds of different Bibles for men women teens and all kinds of other groups of people

And hopefully these are helpful But at the same time along with those notes at the bottom of the page and cross -references other things

Designed to be helpful not always perfectly that way Second title to Psalm 100 is more important because it's actually part of the original

Hebrew text and the King James Bible I looked at says a psalm of praise My ESV translation says a psalm for giving thanks

New American Standard a psalm for Thanksgiving Christian Standard Bible the same as the

King James a psalm of praise NIV New International has a psalm for giving thanks

Proper name for this second set of titles in Psalm 100 is called the historical title

These historical titles are as old as the original text of the psalm

So that the earliest manuscripts have these historical titles. So there are Hebrew words

So for this second title the different translators are all looking at the same

Hebrew text They're all trying to express that in clear contemporary English But the thought's the same with any of these different titles and all of that We're to praise

God and specifically give him thanks So we can take this psalm as a guide to how do we give thanks?

How do we encourage our hearts to give thanks? How do we point ourselves to God and how he wants us to live our lives?

Want us to take a look at this particular psalm that look at the structure of the psalm structure can be helpful and in Applying many passages scripture including this one

Want to share the structure I see here in Psalm 100. I see seven commands and three explanations or motivations for these commands

So here's a structure Seven commands three explanations. First of all, let me list the seven commands for you

And hopefully you have your Bibles open so you can follow along First one is in verse 1 make a joyful noise the

Lord all the lands Second one is in verse 2 the beginning of verse 2 serve the

Lord with gladness Third one is in verse second part of verse 2 come into his presence with singing

A fourth one is in verse 3 the first part of verse 3 know that the

Lord he is God Fifth one is verse 4 the beginning enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise

Sixth one be thankful to him Seventh and last one is in still in verse 4 bless his name

What sets these seven commands apart is that each of them are a command? Or if we're in grammar class we could call them an imperative

For example, if I ask you shut the window or open the door These are things that I'm either asking you to do or hoping you might do or that kind of thing

That's what a command is. So grammatically these seven things are all commands or imperatives

One commentary I was looking at suggests that perhaps we can think of these commands as invitations

So they're not just kind of a Pronouncement kind of command but that God is inviting us into a closer walk with him so that that's one another way of looking at these commands as we

I want to work our way through this list of seven commands in Psalm 100 make a few comments on many of them and Zero in on several of them a couple of them

First one verse one make a joyful noise the Lord all you lands Context here is apparently public worship what we're doing here today

Psalm 150 is another public worship psalm. It's a short psalm. I'll read it to you psalm 150

Let all things praise the Lord Praise the Lord praise God in his sanctuary praise him in his mighty firmament

Praise him for his mighty acts praise him according to his excellent greatness Praise him with the sound of the trumpet praise him with the lute and harp praise him with a timbrel and dance

Praise him with stringed instruments and flutes praise him with loud cymbals praise him with clashing cymbals

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. So here's a hymn of public worship and Psalm 100 is similar to that times and places

God calls us to public worship to worship him joyously and With all the emotions

God's given us and this is what verse 1 of Psalm 100 is telling us when it says make a joyful noise to the

Lord all you lands Can you do this privately individually in your own walk with God? Maybe but I think it's it's really a public worship kind of thing

He's looking ahead to a cosmic worship service Notice the end of this psalm.

It's involves all the years all you lands In the best -case scenario the number of worshippers that could fit into the temple in Jerusalem Either in Old Testament times or New Testament times during Jesus ministry was limited

You can only have so many people there But the psalmist is looking at by faith to a future cosmic worship service with people from all over the earth

Gathering together to worship the Lord. This is something that will be Done fully and completely only in eternity, but it's something that we can

Do in different ways even in our own lifetime There's something called the

Lausanne Conference and recently there was a fourth Lausanne Conference It was held in South and South Korea and Seoul South Korea and there were 5 ,000 people gathered together

Worshipping God in this and these are from all around the world and one thing they did at one point was

Pray the Lord's Prayer But everyone prayed it in their in their own native language.

So here's God's people praising God Worshipping him saying the

Lord's Prayer out loud and doing it together In their own language, and maybe that's a little glimpse of what this is

Talking about That we're to praise God All the earth that there's to be that kind of a cosmic worship service

Ultimately takes place only in eternity, but we can see glimpses of it Here in this present life so that that's what we see here of worship

Second one is found beginning of verse 2 serve the Lord with gladness This word serve can have two different meanings in Scripture Sometimes it can refer simply to any kind of physical service here.

We can think of washing the dishes mowing the lawn Cleaning the house washing the car being faithful in the job your student being faithful in your schoolwork that kind of thing second meaning of the word serve and original

Greek original Hebrew is more specifically related to Distinctly religious or spiritual service in other words

We can serve God by gathering together to sing his praises to listen to his word being read

By fellowshipping with his people and all the other things that are regularly done at a church service each

Sunday I think the rest of the verses focus more on clearly on public worship and This inclines me to think of this specific command of serving court

Serving God in this sense of public worship, but also notice how we're to do this command we're to do it with gladness

Or with our whole heart and emotions What we're to give it everything we have and I think this is a challenge for each of us sometimes we can be in a church worship service and you know our minds kind of flitting here and there other places and We're not really engaged with God We're really not engaged that much with others and this is a challenge for us and God's Word tells us

We're to serve him with gladness and that involves what we do here

Sunday mornings Third one still in verse two come into his presence with singing

Again, we're clearly in the mode of public worship. Is it possible for you to sing by yourself? I think so I don't think

I can sing that well either together or apart Usually when

I'm leading a service like this My wife cautions me if you sing make sure you're back from the microphone

So nobody can hear you so that you know Some of us can sing out loud and we'd be thankful for people who can lead us in worship and lead us in singing

But there's a place for music music can help us worship God a Lot more we could say about the importance of appropriate

Music and worship, but appropriate music is always a part of worship We know from elsewhere in Scripture there were trained choirs

Music leaders even specific hymns and Psalms written in biblical times Old Testament times For worship in the temple including many of the

Psalms that we're looking at including Psalm 100 here today that There's two different ways we can describe the book of Psalms One is it's

Israel's hymn book the other is Israel's prayer book and maybe those two a lot of times go together that hopefully we're praying the music that we're singing and we're

You doing them together? so that there's that theme of Worshiping God fourth one fourth command verse three beginning of verse three know that the

Lord he is God You want to zero in on this idea of knowing that the

Lord he is God just for a moment We can think of this topic of knowing God We need can be thinking about two different levels of knowing him first is an initial coming to God where we know him for the first time

Here we can think of when we're first converted first came to faith. This is when we're first introduced to God God already knew us all along, but we're just kind of getting to know him

So that we can think of that sense of knowing God But there's also an ongoing growing in our relationship with God Where we come to know him better and better for the rest of our earthly lives

We've already initially came to know him mentioned. I'm 76. I came to faith either as a boy of five or a boy of twelve and you subtract either five or twelve from 76 there's a lot of years that I've been a

Christian so that And God's plan and goal is that we'd be growing in our walk with him

Few verses of scripture just read ones Deuteronomy 435 To you it was shown that you might know that the

Lord himself is God and there's none other beside him This is Moses Deuteronomy 435 another one from Moses Deuteronomy 7 9

Therefore know that the Lord is God. He is God the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations

With those who love him and keep his commandments Another one from the Psalms is Psalm 46 verse 10 be still and know that I'm God I'll be exalted among the nations of exalted on earth

But here's one from the New Testament. It's the Apostle Paul at the height of his ministry describing his own heart's desire in Philippians 3 10

That I may know him in the power of his resurrection so here's

Paul and Philippians 3 10. He had already been a believer for almost 30 years at this point

So we're not talking about, you know, I'm just coming to faith. We're talking about Well into his life

He's Get full stride But he still wants to experience more in this area of knowing

God If I had to choose one of these seven commands to try to master more in my own life

This would probably be the one right here Knowing God in an ever deeper way

One thing I like about this goal is that I can do it regardless of circumstances remember a time ten years ago when seminary where I was teaching closed closed down the local branch where I was teaching and Thought came, you know, what am

I going to do next? Two goals for myself. One is growing my own walk with God and share with others

Whatever I'm learning about growing my walk with God And I can do this whether I'm sick or well, whether I have a job don't have a job

Incidentally the same month that I finished teaching As a full -time professor.

I turned 66 Which for somebody in my age bracket, you know as a plausible time to retire, especially if there's no prospect of another job

So the options are pretty few so that But here's the thought

We one thing we can always do Regardless of anything else in our lives is we can grow in our walk with him

And this is certainly something that is pleasing to God For the past several weeks

I've deliberately set one of my goals that I would know more about God every day

In such a way that I would continue to grow in my walk with him. So we're not talking just about Bible trivia

We're not talking about Just objective facts about the Bible. We're talking about knowing

God in a relationship some of us are married or that kind of thing and Can we grow in our relationship with our spouse?

It said in the bulletin we've been married 49 years and that is true in fact so that You know, can we grow in our walk with our spouse?

Hopefully we can But here we're talking about a relationship with God And a relationship with God is deeper and more meaningful than any human relationship you know a lot of times marriages and family parents and children and Even within the church family the church is a family and getting to know each other in the church family

These are all very meaningful things, but the best thing of them all is knowing God So we need to remember that knowing

God's a relational concept. It involves intimacy involves a personal relationship something very different from just knowing some objective facts about God sometimes we make the mistake we're watching

Some news either the internet or TV or however you listen to news and we hear certain things about This or that public figure and we make the mistake of assuming

I know this public figure because I know certain facts about him or her and yet that's not true

We most of us have never met most of these public figures It's in the news so that but here's knowing

God is something different It's a deeper relationship Fifth one this is beginning of verse four enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise

So here the imagery is clearly public worship in its original context God's people would have been entering the temple gates and into the courts of the

Jewish temple there in Jerusalem For most of Old Testament history this would have been Solomon's temple built in Solomon's reign is

Place of worship for the Living God a place where God would physically be present in a special way

This Temple in Jerusalem was truly one of the wonders of the ancient world

Some people have calculated Maybe this temple mount area where the temple was built is an area about 15 acres in size

How big a field is 15 acres that's you know, kind of a generous size of land and It was all at least by New Testament times all leveled and you know

This retaining wall was built around it so you could have a flat level area Temple is part of it and the temple is

Symbolizing God's Prince Holy of Holies God's present their holy place the next place out and then the temple courtyard where here's the altar for Sacrifices that kind of thing.

So it's really it's the temple is not a meeting place. It doesn't have chairs in it It has symbol symbolizing

God's presence, but all around the temple. There are these different colonnades and Open areas where God's people would gather to pray and worship so that There would be this kind of thing.

So here's this Fifth command enter his gates with thanksgiving in his courts with praise

Six one we're going to move on here is Be thankful to him and again, we're going to camp out just a little bit on this six one be thankful to him

The idea of giving thanks is one of the key instructions in this entire psalm and here it's highlighted for us very clearly

Again we can take this command both Individually and corporately we need to be thankful to God every day in the privacy of our own hearts

This needs to be part of our own prayer life part of our own personal devotions Lack of being thankful is one of the more serious offenses we can commit against God God tells us in Colossians 3 15 and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you are called into One body and be thankful So here's a command to be thankful already quoted first Thessalonians 5 18 in everything give thanks

For this is a will of God in Christ Jesus concerning which God's will for you among other things.

It's giving thanks But I think one of the more significant verses about being thankful is found in Romans 1 21 where Paul warns us

Although they knew God they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful But became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened

In other words a failure to recognize God and give him. Thanks Impacts even our ability to think clearly and rightly

That if we're not recognizing, you know this world that we created I'm gonna assume everybody drove here at least was outside Even if you walked here and you see the glory of God Are we do we recognize

God's presence in creation? Do we thank him for the world that he's made?

So that there is that place for just regular Thankfulness to God and we do this in our own personal relationship with God Trust him in whatever situations may find herself

But Psalm 100 reminds us there's a corporate dimension to giving thanks

So that in churches like this, there's a prayer time and hopefully that prayer time includes two things items for prayer and Items of praise or Thanksgiving so that we're both praying for future needs and we're expressing

Thanks for past blessings. Maybe that we prayed about previous week or that kind of thing so that we're

Thanking God corporately For what he's done We see this corporate dimension in some of Jesus parables

Consider he tells a story of a shepherd who lost one of his sheep in Luke 15 And when the shepherd found the missing sheep, he said listen to his words

Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost What does he say rejoice with me?

He's inviting other people to enter into his joy He's deliberately inviting others to join him and giving thanks

Jesus follows this up with another parable also in Luke 15 Story of a woman who lost one of her ten silver coins when she found it.

She calls together her friends and neighbors Saying rejoice with me for I have found the coin that wasn't that I had lost

So again, here's a corporate dimension of giving. Thanks. So we want to do this

Individually for sure. I think also in our family units that I remember years ago my wife and I had a some kind of a notebook and we write down prayer requests and we also write down in that same notebook when that prayer was answered

So that we'd have kind of a record and just kind of remind ourself of those things

So that we did this as a family Also times and places to do that like this woman where they're friends and neighbors

There's also a time and place to do it corporately with other believers. So again, we're talking about Corporate worship.

So being thankful is more than a private affair in the quietness of our own hearts It's there's times and places we gather together with God's people and we share how

God has blessed us Seventh one this is found also in verse 4 bless his name

In other words, we're to glorify God There's a strange request in the

Lord's Prayer that often seems a little foreign to us. It's hallowed be your name

It's interesting to me this word hallowed seemed to show up in every English translation.

I looked at real quickly at least so that hallowed means to sanctify or make holy or set apart

God's name and This is what we're talking about here this command to bless his name

Now in one sense God's already great and glorious And in one sense, there's nothing we can do as human beings to bless our further

God's glory God's bigger and different than we are. We can't make him more glorious than he already is but in another sense we can and should worship

God by so aligning our hearts and minds to the glory of God and Worshipping him so that we in fact bless him in this way that we can so tune our hearts to Blessing God to worshiping him that there is more praise going on at least in our hearts than there was before So there is a way that we can bless great and mighty

God So these are these seven commands seven duties seven things God wants us to do here in this psalm 100

Or we could think of them maybe as invitations to a closer and deeper walk with him Seven things

God invites us to do asks us to do In many ways a list like this can seem like a daunting list

Maybe you come to church and you feel a little bit like I just read the Ten Commandments to you do this do that Don't do this.

Don't do something else and We can easily feel overwhelmed

The purpose of this psalm is not to overwhelm us with its commands But rather to focus on who

God is and how great he is so these things come more natural to us

Now sometimes we can think of command like be thankful Maybe it's a little bit like if somebody commanded you to be happy And if you're already happy or at least open to trying to be happy It's something within the range of possibility for us

But think with me think of a time when you're not happy and you're not even in a mood to try to be happy What do you do then with somebody saying be happy?

It's like somebody like myself saying be thankful When your mind and heart is somewhere else

Maybe your mind and heart is focused on the trials and difficulties of life or some

Problem that you're wrestling with Already mentioned that God's a great and sovereign God But at the same time

God often does things that catch us by surprise things that we do not understand

Why is God doing this in my life or your life and a lot of times we don't know

There's a word that I find a bunch of times in the Bible. It's the word test

T -e -s -t We should see it for example in Genesis 22 verse 1

Bible tells us that God tested Abraham When he asked him to offer up his only son

Isaac Find it Exodus 16 God tested the people of Israel when he gave them manna to eat

Exodus 16 for tells us his motive was to test them whether they would walk in his law or not

Moses reviews how God had been at work in the people of Israel over the years over 40 years in Deuteronomy Chapter 8 verse 2 and you should remember that the

Lord your God led you all these 40 years in the wilderness To humble you and test what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not

Does God not know ahead of time what we're going to do? I think he does The issue is we don't know

So he's doing it partly for our sake and partly to encourage us

We look at ourselves and we say, you know, I failed here. So we cry out to God afresh for his mercy so that God allows difficulties in our lives and perhaps in a room like this

Maybe some of you are in difficult circumstances even this past week where you needed to cry out to him for a special help and grace

I know is in a situation like this recently even when I was preparing this particular message that there's

God allows trials and difficulties. Maybe you're even there this morning. Who knows? This is where the other lines of this psalm are so important Focus of this message is not on the commands.

I just read the focus is going to be on the Encouragements that come here in this psalm

I want us to continue to look at the other lines that I skipped over and when I shared these seven commands with you

Here I'm going to structure our remaining thoughts around three truths Verse three middle of verse it is he who has made us and not we ourselves

Into verse three we are his people and the sheep of his pasture and then all of verse five

For the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and his truth endures to all generations

So I want to spread spend the next few minutes looking at these three explanations of why we should be thankful Because if we have these explanations down properly in our minds we're already a good way along toward living lives that are pleasing to God and Where we're able to be thankful to him.

So let's look at these three truths first one verse three middle It's he who has made us and not we ourselves.

In other words. God is our creator and we belong to God Second one still in verse three.

We are his people in the sheep of his pasture Here we've been redeemed by God Making us his people his sheep.

We're more than a part of his creation. That was point one We become his children through our

Lord Jesus Christ and then verse five For the Lord is good.

His mercy is everlasting as truth endures to all generations In other words God's character.

God is a good and loving God Well, look at these a little more depth first one knowing

God is creator or as it's phrased here in verse three It's he was made us and not we ourselves

Bible begins with a story of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 Because logically realizing

God is a foundation of everything else Is the foundation for everything else

God tells us God's telling us he has a claim on our lives. We belong to him

Even unsafe people in one sense belong to God. God is part of their part of His creation may not belong to him in terms of salvation

But they belong to him in terms of he's made this world and everyone in it Many people make the mistake of assuming their own bodies they

That their own bodies and minds and wills are their own Do our bodies really belong to us to our minds really belong to us?

Can we really do anything we want with their bodies and minds God's given us? This is definitely not what the

Bible teaches. We belong to God because among other reasons he's created us

Knowing God is our creator who has claims on our lives is Always the first step toward knowing him and being in a right relationship with God This is why

I think if we're gonna share Christ with other people one of the first truths We need to share God is creator.

God has made you God has a claim on your life You owe him your life you owe me him your obedience

Knowing God is creator also involves our accountability to him as our creator Listen to these words in Psalm 33 verses 13 to 15

Psalm 33 13 to 15 the Lord looks down from heaven. He sees all the sons of men

From the place of his dwelling. He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashions their hearts individually.

He considers all their works Do you ever realize that God is watching everything you say do and think?

He knows the thoughts in our minds even before we've opened our mouth This first idea knowing

God is creator second one We are his people in the sheep of his pasture this involves knowing

God is our Redeemer and Savior This is a step beyond point one of knowing

God is creator Knowing God is creator is true of everyone saved and unsaved now

We're focusing here in point two of the privilege of being one of God's children or one of his sheep as is

Phrased here. This is a privilege for only God's children in One way we can never become one of his sheep

Only by knowing the Good Shepherd This is why Jesus tells us in John 10 14.

I'm the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep and I'm known by my own Earlier in that same chapter

John 10 Jesus had told the people how he was relating To them as a

Good Shepherd, that's what he says The sheep hear his voice. He calls out his own sheep by name leads them out when he brings out his own sheep

He goes before them and his sheep follow him and they know his voice God's sheep are those who have known the

Good Shepherd's call and have responded to him in faith and trust and become his children What greater privilege can we ever have than knowing

God is our Savior? Third principle, Psalm 100, focuses on the general character of God Tells us in verse 5,

Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, his truth endures to all generations Or in other words,

God is a good and loving and gracious God Notice this idea of experiencing his mercy and this mercy could also be translated as steadfast love or faithfulness

It's a Hebrew word hesed. That means God's covenant faithfulness Faithfulness is what it means

Yet we know from the rest of the scripture, God's mercy or steadfast love or faithfulness are found only in Jesus Christ So this

Psalm assumes we've already placed our faith and trust in God's plan of salvation Which we know from the

New Testament specifically involves a relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior And as we experience his mercy, his steadfast love, his faithfulness

We do it forever or to all generations Because nothing can separate us from his perfect love

Once we've become a believer in Christ, we're forever changed We're brought into a new relationship with God Here in Psalm 100, we find a principle that's found throughout scripture

Grace always comes first before our response

God begins his work in our lives before he tells us what to do Grace comes before commands

We see this principle illustrated for us in the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20

I'm going to read the first two of these commands in Exodus 20 But I want to begin with the opening verses of Exodus 20

And this is before there's any commands And God spoke all these words saying, I'm the

Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt Out of the house of bondage Ten Commandments begin

God reminds them of what he has already done for them We see the same thing in God's dealing with us

Before he ever asked us to do anything God begins by reminding us of his grace

And then as Exodus 20 continues on God reminds them of some things that he wants them to do

First of these commands is, you shall have no other gods before me

Second of these, you should not make for yourself any carved image or any likeness of anything that's in heaven above Whether it's the earth beneath or in the water under the earth

You should not bow down to them or serve them For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me

But showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments First of these commandments tell us what?

We need to worship the right God Second commandment, we need to worship the right

God in the right way And that both of these are foundational to the Old Testament Lesson here is that God first delivered his people

Delivered them from slavery And as a result of delivering them He's in a position to tell them what he wants them to do

And he gives them ten commandments We see the same thing in the

New Testament Paul explains the same principle this way in Romans 5 -8 God demonstrates his love toward us

And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for you Died for us Died for you

So that, here's a question Let's presume we come to a point in our lives

We recognize that we're a sinner That we've disobeyed God When did Jesus die?

Did he die after we realized that we were a sinner? Or before? Answer, he died about 2 ,000 years before So that God begins with his grace

His grace took place long before we were even born Let alone long before we ever sinned

And again, this is how it works God begins by taking initiative

Let's pretend we're trying to meet somebody for the first time Trying to introduce ourselves, get to know them

What happens if that other person doesn't want to reciprocate? We hold out our hand, we want to shake hands

They don't want to shake hands You know, what do we do? We're dependent on that other person to respond, to reciprocate

And when we think about God We're not reaching out our hand to God He's reached out his hand long before And he has already done what we need to have done

In order for us to come to know him He's provided us a savior He's provided his own son who died on the cross

So that we can come into that right relationship with him There is a place for us, yes, to reciprocate

To respond If God is speaking to your life And telling you he wants you to trust him

He wants you to give your life to him There is a place for a response So even though we believe in the sovereignty of God We still believe there's a place for a human response

It's still part of God's sovereign plan Still believe in election, predestination, all these things

But there is a place for that response And that's what we're talking about in these two parts of Psalm 100

Seven commands that kind of seem more obvious to us as we read through And that's why

I developed them first But there's this second part That God is a gracious God He's created us

In this paper I'm going to share on NERF on Tuesday One sentence or two, as near as I can recollect them

Are that God has

Imagine if God created this world And everything took place just like it has

Only God never created you You know, just to remind ourselves

God didn't need to create any of us He chose to create us He had a reason in creating us

He has things that he wants us to do with our lives He wants us basically to glorify him In whatever ways that make sense in our lives

So that it all begins with God taking initiative First as creator

Second as redeemer Third as showing us something of his character

He's a good and gracious and loving God So that this is what we see

We see the same thing in Psalm 100 It's because God is our creator and redeemer

Because he's good and loving It makes sense for us to do these other things That he tells us about here

In this list of seven commands Seven invitations Make a joyful noise to the

Lord all you lands Come into his presence with singing Know that the Lord is God Enter his gates with thanksgiving

Enter his courts with praise Be thankful to him, bless his name These commands are part of how

God wants to guide us And show us how he wants us to live our lives If we know

God as creator and redeemer What does he want us to do? Earlier I mentioned seven things in Psalm 100

Think of the ten commandments We can think of Jesus Two great commandments Love God, love others

All kinds of different ways If we were a Jewish rabbi We could go through the Old Testament And count and conclude

There's 613 commands in the Old Testament That's their traditional number For looking at the

Old Testament So commands is part of it

But commands is really the outflow of a changed life Here's a question

Why is there so little giving thanks Among God's people And many of our churches today?

I think the answer is simply That we're not fully persuaded In the depth of our heart of three things

God's created us He's redeemed us At least if we're a child of his And that God is a good and gracious God And that we kind of struggle

With those three things We can get bogged down With the trials and difficulties of life

We can get bogged down With the cares and concerns of this world So that what

God wants us to do Is God knows that life is sometimes hard I'm going to say often hard I think that I'm older than at least many of you

Not everybody maybe But many of you Here's my thought As long as we live

God has fresh lessons to teach us God will continue to allow trials and difficulties

And challenges in our lives Things that have worked right before Don't seem to work right today

Even this morning I was kind of wrestling With one of our appliances at home It's not quite working the way it should

And who knows why You know there's all kinds of It's worked for 20 years But today it doesn't quite work right

You know so that Life has challenges And God wants us to encourage us

To trust him And how does he do that? Reminding us of three things

God's our creator For his child he's our redeemer And God is good and gracious I want to close with two thoughts

A word to the unsaved A word to the saved First a word to the unsaved Here's three things that God wants you to hear today

As an unsaved person First God's created you Because of that he has a claim on your life

Second one God's provided a way whereby you can become a child of his One of his sheep

As it's described here in this psalm But this is possible only if you receive Jesus Christ As Lord and Savior Third God is a kind and gracious God And this is why

We read in verse 5 For the Lord is good His steadfast love endures forever And is faithful to all generations

I also have a final word For the saved Three things you most need to hear As a saved person

And the list is almost identical to the previous list Just tweaked a little different here and there First one

Always remember every day That God has created you He has a claim on your life

Second one Also remember that you're a child of his You can call God Your heavenly father

You can be one of his sheep And you are one of his sheep If you are a saved person And he's brought you into a special relationship

With himself That we can go through all of life Including whatever we might experience

Today, this week, this month, this year The rest of our lives We can go through it In the presence of God Third thing

Remember each day and in every situation That we might find ourselves That God is a good and gracious God And verse 5 reminds us

For the Lord is good His mercy is everlasting His truth endures to all generations

If we're a child of God We already know at least a little of these three things God is creator

God is redeemer God's character Or we couldn't be a Christian But here's the thought

God wants us to grow in our relationship With him and our understanding of these

Three truths about God God wants us to see that his role As our creator

Impacts more Areas of our lives than we often think God wants us to remember That If we're a child of his

That Jesus Christ has given us A new heart A new mind, new feelings, new desires

Where we want to increasingly Give God every place He deserves in every area of our lives

God promises Never to leave us forsaken Or to forsake us But to go with us through all of life

Including the hard times And the Bible is realistic There are hard times God allows hard times in the lives of his people

And yet he promises to go with us Bow with me in a word of prayer Our father in heaven

May you give each one of us New minds and hearts That love you and desire to worship you May we spend our lives

Doing all the things we read about In this list of seven commands In Psalm 100 It's truly only because of your grace

In our lives and the new heart That you've given us that these seven things Become invitations Invitations to a deeper walk with you

And not commands that we need To try to muscle up our own human willpower Psalm 100

Is a reminder of your goodness and grace We thank you for this Psalm And we look for you to continue

And complete your work in each of our lives We pray this in Jesus' name Who makes all this possible