The Thanksgiving Psalm
Psalm 100
Thanksgiving is not natural.
A small boy was given an orange by a nice man. His mom asked, "What do you say to the nice man who gave you the orange?"
Handing the orange back to the man, the boy said, "Peel it."
Psalm 100 can be organized in several ways.
1. Praise to God, 2. The person of God, 3. The promises of God.
Seven directives: Make noise. Serve. Come. Know. Enter. Give thanks. Bless.
Tonight, I would rather dissect the passage and glean the issues of Thanksgiving.
Psa 100:1 A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
We normally joke that "a joyful noise" is singing from one who is not gifted.
Actually, it originally describes more of an exuberant shout, a trumpet blast to mark the beginning of a celebration.
Who should give thanks to God? All the earth.
God has demonstrated His love to all men.
It rains on the just and the unjust, Matthew 5:45.
The ladies of certain parts of Mexico take their laundry to the springs. There are places where hot and cold springs run side by side.
The women wash their clothes in the hot springs and rinse them in the cold springs.
When someone asked a guide if the women were thankful to God for supplying such a wonderful gift to them, he said, "No, they complain because He doesn’t supply soap."
Men without God are more likely to curse God for not supplying enough conveniences while He is lovingly supplying us with all we need to survive.
Psa 100:2 Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!
Serve the Lord with gladness. Some translations say "Worship"
The Hebrew word that you would not remember actually reflects three things.
Surrender and submission, service and stewardship, and worship and praise.
It is letting God be Lord, and instructs us to do it gladly.
Secondly, verse 2 instructs us to approach Him.
It not only tells us to approach Him, but how to approach Him: with singing.
Many say that this is why we begin our Church services with music.
We collectively come into the presence of God when we lift our voices in praise.
What I want you to see tonight is that we serve a God who invites us to Himself.
If you need a reason for Thanksgiving, this can stand alone.
Our God desires our company and invites us to His Thanksgiving celebration.
Psa 100:3 Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
He not only invites us to come to Himself, but invites us to know Him.
Know that Jehovah is Elohim. The true God is the Trinity.
Know that the self-existent eternal God is the King of Kings and Lord of Lord.
He made us, and we are his. Lord, owner, creator.
Some Hebrew texts reflect, He made us and not we ourselves.
Adam Clarke in his 1800’s commentary said, " I can never think that this is the true reading, though found in the present Hebrew text, in the Vulgate, Septuagint, Ethiopic, and Syriac. Was there ever a people on earth, however grossly heathenish, that did believe, or could believe, that they had made themselves?"
Yet, John Gill in his commentary written in the 1700’s, said, "as we have no hand in making either our souls or bodies, so neither in our regeneration, or in the work of God upon our hearts; that is solely the Lord’s work: there is a double reading of this clause;"
What is not debated is, "We are His people, the sheep of His pasture."
The Psalmist has moved from the universal call to praise to the focus of those who will truly praise God: His sheep.
Sheep of His pasture indicates God’s possession, protection and provisions for us.
Psa 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!
This verse reflects a gathering. The gates represent the gates of the city as people came to the original Thanksgiving celebrations called for in Leviticus 7.
Many of you thought that thanksgiving was original for the United States.
One of the Jewish feasts was that of thanksgiving.
They were instructed to eat meat and grain, a reminder of how life was before Cain and Able were separated by envy and jealousy.
It was also a thanksgiving to God for blessing the livestock and the crops.
People would come to the city from the outer villages and enter Jerusalem through the gates.
They were to enter the gates with thanksgiving.
Then they would gather in the courts of the temple and begin their praise.
In their singing, they would thank God for His provisions and praise Him for His attributes.
Thus, they would thank Him and bless His name.
A missionary eye doctor once said he treated people for an eye desease that would cause people to go blind. He said no one ever said "thank you". In their dialect, there is no such word. They would say, "I will tell your name." To show appreciation, they would ever tell of the one who saved their eyesight.
We, as redeemed Children of God, should ever praise Him by telling His name.
Psa 100:5 For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
The basis for thanksgiving can be found in this Psalms.
He created us. But to have a creator that created us and abandoned us would justify resentment.
He is just and right. But because we are sinful, if He was just and right alone, that would generate hatred.
But three things sum up this Psalms that should create thanksgiving in our hearts that cannot help but flow from our lips.
1. He is good. His goodness is towards all mankind.
It is evident in the rain, the crops, the livestock, nature, the atmosphere, the balance.
We worship a good God.
When the young rich ruler called Jesus "a good teacher", Jesus responded, "there is only one who is good."
Jehovah is good. Jesus was Jehovah.
Verse 3 said we are the sheep of His pasture.
Verse 5 said He is good.
In John 10:11 & 14, Jesus said, "I am the good Shepherd." Jesus is Jehovah.
2) His love never ends.
God is love. God defines Love.
Listen to the description of God and His love.
I Corinthians 13:4-8a Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
That kind of love is more than worthy of thanksgiving.
3) His faithfulness is forever.
To all generations, all peoples, all nations.
One of my favorite verses, " if we are faithless, he remains faithful-- for he cannot deny himself." 2 Timothy 2:13.
Let me end with the fundamentals of Thanksgiving found in this Psalm.
1. An issue of emotions. (Joyful, gladness, singing).
Sometimes we are not as happy in the Christian life because of our situation.
When we focus on our situations and circumstances, we forget to be thankful.
When we focus on what God has done for us, it should bring joy and happiness.
A gloomy, depressed Christian has lost touch with the things God has done for us.
Ephesians 2 alone says be brought us from death to life.
We were under then trance of Satan and have been awakened.
He has even declared us seated already with Him in the heavenlies, declaring the certainty of it.
He has assured us His immeasurable riches of His kindness towards us.
He also assures us productivity, based upon His providence and our scheduled maturity.
Peter puts it this way, "2Pe 1:3-4 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire."
Our emotions cannot lead us, but when we focuses what all God has done for us, they should follow with shouting.
2. An issue of values. (self centered instead of focusing on what God has done for us).
We lose our joy and exuberance when we focus on self and not on God.
When our attention is wrapped up in the here-and-now, we can lose joy when things get tough.
However, it is important that thankful Christians keep their minds on the big picture.
Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor can you imagine what God has in store for those who love Him.
"Worship is not based on who you are or what you have. It is based on who God is and what He has done. " Chris Talton, New Life Baptist Church, Bridgeport, VA.
3. An Issue of ownership.
We are His. We are the sheep of His pasture.
Thanksgiving comes from having a good Shepherd.
Consider the 23 Psalm. Put your name in it where ever it can go.
4. An Issue of Recognition. (good, enduring love, endless faithfulness)
If you view God as the angry father, you will not be thankful.
If you view God as your vengeful judge, you will not be thankful.
If you see God as good, with enduring love and endless faithfulness, thanksgiving will flood from your heart.
"In 1636, amid the darkness of the Thirty Years’ War, a German pastor, Martin Rinkart, is said to have buried five thousand of his parishioners in one year, and average of fifteen a day. His parish was ravaged by war, death, and economic disaster. In the heart of that darkness, with the cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote this table grace for his children: ’Now thank we all our God / With heart and hands and voices;/ Who wondrous things had done,/ In whom His world rejoices. /Who, from our mother’s arms,/Hath led us on our way/ With countless gifts of love/ And still is ours today.’"Here was a man who knew thanksgiving comes from love of God, not from outward circumstances.
