Giving Thanks as a Response to God’s Grace

Thanksgiving and Praise in Psalm 100

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 that's 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 get to the end of the 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 than 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 the 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 the 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 the thoughts 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.

Fourth one is in verse 3 the first part of verse 3 know that the Lord he is God. Fifth one is verse 4 at 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 is 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 earth all you lands. In the best-case scenario the number of worshipers 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 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 2 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 can 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. 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 3 beginning of verse 3 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 5 or a boy of 12 and you subtract either 5 or 12 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 one's 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 hit 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, it's 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 found 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 on 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.

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 and 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 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 presence 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 were called into one body and be thankful.

So here's a command to be thankful already quoted 1st 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 and 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 in 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 was 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 with her 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 we've views how God had been at work in the people of Israel over the years over 40 years. 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.

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 was 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.