PSALM 100
“The Basis of Our Thanksgiving”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN
The 100th Psalm was written for the people of Israel.
God had basically said to them, “When you come into the promised land, and settle down in your warm homes, and you have plenty to eat…
…don’t forget Me…
…I led you out of the wilderness and I brought you into a land flowing with milk and honey.”
But it doesn’t take very long to realize that the people of Israel needed a reminder…
…and we need one too.
And I believe God had us in mind, too, when this Psalm was written.
Did we notice to whom it is addressed?
The first verse says that it’s addressed to “all the earth,” and the last verse says that it includes “all generations.”
The importance of thanksgiving is so deep and so wide that it applies to every person of every generation who has ever lived!
Webster’s New World Dictionary defines the word thanksgiving as “a formal public expression of thanks to God.”
And there is something about giving thanks together to God that breaks down barriers between people and brings about a unity.
Psalm 100 is a hymn that was sung while entering the temple, and it probably was done in connection with a thanksgiving ceremony.
Let’s look at what the 100th Psalm emphasizes…
...let’s just scan the Psalm…
…in verse 1 we find the name of the Lord…
…in verse 2 we find the name of the Lord…
…in verse 3 we find the name of the Lord…
…In verse 4 it says, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving.”….
….and in verse 5 we see, “For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”
…This is the basis for our thanksgiving—The LORD!!!
Alex Haley, the author of “Roots,” had an unusual picture hanging on his office wall.
It was a picture of a turtle on top of a fence post.
When asked, “Why is that there?”…
…Alex Haley answered, “Every time I write something significant, every time I read my words and think that they are wonderful….
…and I begin to feel proud of myself…
…I look down at the turtle on top of the fence post and remember that he didn’t get there on his own.
he had help.”
How many of us have had help?
Where did this help come from?
Where would we be without the help of the Lord?…
…without the goodness of the Lord?…
…without the love of the Lord?…
…without the faithfulness of the Lord?
Verse 3 instructs us, “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”
Again, where would we be?
Where were you before you knew that the Lord is God?
Were you like a lost ship—out at sea?
Was your life just one big confusing mess?
Were you scared?
Were you driven by fear; rather than love, confidence and hope?
To “know that the Lord is God”…
...well…
…that, my friends, is the most important thing we can ever discover.
Money is not god.
Popularity is not god.
Good health…well, that will fade away along with youth, and physical strength.
Friends may abandon us.
Sin will destroy us.
Satan will tempt us.
Grief will overcome us.
“Creature comforts” will never satisfy us.
But the Lord is God!!!
“It is he who made us, and we are his…”
God thought of you while you were still just the dust of the earth.
God used God’s creative energies to make you.
You are God’s!!!
God loves you beyond your ability to comprehend.
It’s an awesome thing to be a parent.
Before Mary Ellen was born, I never knew the degree to which one can love another human being.
She is my joy.
Even when Mary Ellen is acting up…
…even when Mary Ellen is giving me a hard time about wanting to wear a certain Princess dress that she has already worn 3 days in a row…
…even when Mary Ellen won’t go to bed on time…
…I enjoy her.
She’s cute and wonderful—even then.
How much more does Your Heavenly Father…
…Who knows you better than you know yourself…
…Love YOU?
My friends, we are not alone.
This life is not, ultimately, some cruel joke where we are the punch lines.
We are God’s!
“we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”
Do we know this?
For it is the knowledge of this reality which makes life worth the living…
…brings meaning into an otherwise futile existence…
…and causes “sons and daughters to prophesy…
…old men to dream dreams…
…and young men and women to see visions”!!!
It is a new and explosive thing to believe and have the assurance that God loves you, that Jesus died for your sins, and that there is a call on your life…
…the highest calling imaginable…
… “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
It goes entirely against the grain of this, often, dog-eat-dog world…and…
…Praise God for that!!!
In Matthew Chapter 13 Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.
When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
When we come upon the treasure of the Kingdom there is a decision to be made, and made urgently.
The gospel isn’t a pleasant religious idea that you might like to explore some time when you’ve got an hour or two to spare.
It isn’t like an attractive object in a museum that you might visit and look at admiringly the next time you’re in the city.
It’s like a fabulous hoard of treasure, yours for the taking—if you’ll sell everything else to buy the field where its hidden!!!!
It’s like the biggest, finest, purest pearl that any jeweler ever imagined, and it’s yours for the taking—if you’ll sell all the lies of the world in order to purchase it!!!
The choice is real, stark and sharp.
Why waste time on junk when you can have the One Great Pearl; the One Hoard of Treasure…
…everything else is nothing beside it!!!
Psalm 100 is filled with commands….
…let’s look at verse 1: “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.”
This really is a slice of heaven isn’t it?
There is nothing more healthy for the soul, more cleansing for the mind…
…there is nothing that makes a human being more happy than utterly and completely praising the Lord!!!
In her classic autobiography The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom tells of a time when she and her sister were forced to take off all their clothes during Nazi inspections at a death camp.
Corrie stood in line feeling forsaken and defiled.
Suddenly, she remembered that Jesus had hung naked on the Cross.
Struck with wonder and worship during that seemingly forsaken moment, Corrie leaned forward and whispered to her sister: “Betsie, they took His clothes too.”
Betsie gasped and said, “Oh, Corrie, and I never thanked Him.”
Wow!
Thanksgiving doesn’t require bounty—just recognition of what our Savior has done for us!
It is so easy for us to say, “Woe is me!”
It is so easy for many of us to curse God…
…to blame God when calamity strikes.
But we have things upside down!
We live in a fallen world!
We all sin!
The wages of sin is death!
It is only by the grace of God that we have the good times and the good things that we do have!…
…It’s not as if we deserve them!
Robert E. Bruce describes the following incident: “While walking along a busy street one day, I heard someone singing.
His sweet voice was distinguishable even above the noise of the traffic.
When I located him, I noticed that he had no legs and was pushing himself through the crowd in a wheelchair.
Catching up with him, I said, ‘I want you to know, friend, that to hear singing from a person in your condition gives everyone else a lift.’
He answered with a grateful smile: “When I stopped looking at what I had lost and began concentrating on all I had left, I found much for which I could rejoice and be happy!”
It is from the depths of our beings that we proclaim our praise!
There was a man who served as a medical missionary for many years in India.
He served in an area where there was progressive blindness.
People were born with healthy vision, but there was something in that area that caused people to lose their sight as they matured.
Well, this medical missionary developed a process that would stop progressive blindness.
So people came to him and he performed his operation, and they would leave realizing that they would have become blind…
…but now they were going to be able to see for the rest of their lives.
The people never said: “Thank you,” to this missionary because that phrase was not in their dialect.
Instead, they spoke a word that meant: “I will tell your name.”
Wherever they went, they would tell the name of the missionary who had cured their blindness.
They had received something so wonderful that they eagerly proclaimed it!
Have we received something so wonderful that we eagerly proclaim it?
When we come to the point in our lives when we are able to see the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ…
…and we surrender our very selves in order to follow the Lord…
…and the burden of this life is lifted…
….Suddenly, when we realize that God has been so good to us…
…that God loves us so much…
…that we can’t keep it inside any longer…
…from the depths of our being we shout our joy to the Lord!
And this…this is the source of our thanksgiving!!!
I pray that this will be a most meaningful thanksgiving week for all of us!
May our hearts overflow with thanksgiving to the Lord as we meditate on God’s Word, on God’s goodness, on God’s love, and on God’s faithfulness!!!
