Title: Let’s Meet at God’s Place for Thanksgiving
Text: Psalm 100
Thesis: God’s place is a joyful place of thanksgiving and praise… when we prepare to make it so.
Introduction
In that we do not have family nearby Bonnie and I are pretty intentional about where we will go for Thanksgiving Dinner.
This year the Stanley Hotel reduced its brunch to serving only 300 guests so it booked up very quickly. I found an interesting and quaint place called The Hearth Stone in Breckenridge. It’s a 120 year old Victorian house that has been serving Breckenridge since 1939 but it did not begin serving until mid-afternoon. So it is brunch at Ellynton’s at The Brown Palace this year. No muss. No fuss. Nearby. Valet Parking. Jazz combo (not sure how that works on Thanksgiving). And we will enjoy a deliciously prepared and presented brunch.
We know where we are going. We know how to get there. We know we will be graciously received and served. We know we will enjoy our brunch. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving. We are going to The Brown Palace.
In one sense the celebration of Thanksgiving is not only an event… it is a destination.
I. God’s Place, Psalm 100:4
Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 100:4
The Psalmist associated the event of giving thanks with going to the House of God for the specific purpose of giving thanksgiving and praise to God. For the Psalmist and those who lived then and there giving thanks and praise meant going to Temple.
When our children were young we enjoyed going to Grandpa’s and Grandma’s house for holidays. It was usually a trip so the kiddos were especially excited when we finally arrived. The festivities were about to begin…. Hugs and kisses all around. Grandparents. Great Grandparents. Uncles and aunts. Cousins. Inlaws and outlaws. This all happened in the front yard and on the front porch before we unloaded our stuff and went into the house. It was always such a joyful time for us.
But then the years passed and our kiddos and our grandchildren would journey to be with Grandpa and Grandma. We typically get a text or a call… “We’re in Omaha.” Eventually we get a text or call, “We’re in Ogallala. And then the countdown begins… and as they anxiously pressed their noses against the car window when they arrived at our house… inside Bonnie and I had our noses pressed against the glass in anticipation of their arrival.
I am telling you the anticipation and joy we have experienced as grandparents awaiting the arrival of our children and grandchildren far exceeds their anticipation of arrival. Had I been more observant I would have seen how much our arrival meant to Grandpa and Grandma.
There is something heartfelt about going to God’s house… about deliberately setting a time to be in the presence of our Heavenly Father… and now I understand just how happy God must be when we arrive.
One of the things that make going to God’s place is that it is a grace place.
II. God’s Place Is a Grace Place, Psalm 100:5
For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation. Psalm 100:5
When we conscientiously set about seeking the presence of God for the purpose of thanksgiving and praise it is not as though we are unmotivated worshipers.
God’s place is a grace place where we know we will be accepted and loved forever. We know that the grace of God is not limited to just one generation but is a love that continues down through the generations.
There are lots of “Home is where…” idioms. There is the old idiom, “Home is where the hearts it.” RVers may say, “Home is where you park it.” One comedian quipped, “Always be nice to your kids because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.” But more to the point I wish to make about God’s place being a grace place, “Home is where you can go as you are.” And, “Home is a place where when you go there they have to take you in.”
God is better than that. It is true that you may come to God’s place as you are and you may come to God’s place pretty sure that God will take you in. God’s place is a place where we know God’s love for us is unfailing and where God does not deal with us as we deserve. God’s place where God is like a father who is tender and compassionate toward his children. (Psalm 103) So whatever we may bring with us to church, we may be assured that God will forgive it so we do not have to take it home
Going to God’s place is not only a place to experience God’s grace, it is a safe place.
III. God’s Place is a Safe Place, Psalm 100:3
Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Psalm 100:3
When Bonnie and I were in college we attended Northwest Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. My guess is that the whole area has likely been redeveloped or gentrified or maybe even razed… it was a black congregation in the inner city. The pastor was The Reverend Lee Roy Gardner. Brother Bellamy was the lead elder.
The people at Northwest Baptist were poor. They lived in ghetto housing. They worked menial jobs. Gangs were prevalent. The Black Panthers made their presence known… it was not uncommon to see graffiti paintings of Black Power fists on buildings along Grand Avenue. Racial tensions were high.
But on Sunday morning you would have thought Northwest Baptist Church was the happiest place on the planet.
The pianist was a large black lady. The choir entered the sanctuary from the back and processed down the center aisle rocking and swaying to the beat of a baby grand piano you expected would collapse in a pile of rubble at any moment. The choir sang. They swayed. They clapped. And by the time they reached the choir loft the congregation was warmed up and the glory of the Lord filled the house.
I wondered how people who live in those kinds of environments can come to church and express such joy… knowing that in an hour or so, they would be going back out into the world.
In part I think going to church put things in perspective. This is God’s house. It is a refuge from the week day world and the struggles of life. Going to church was like coming in from the cold. Going to church was a safe place in a scary world.
Going to church was acknowledging that the Lord is God! He made us and we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Going to church was a reminder that God takes care of his people like a shepherd takes care of his sheep.
It was a safe place for the people of God!
Heather Entrekin tells of her husband calling her during a Penn State – Michigan State football game. He held the phone up so she could hear the crowd chanting on one side of the stadium, “We are…” and then the response from the opposite side of the stadium, “Penn State!” Back and forth it went, “We are… Penn State!” “We are… Penn State!” It went on until the final buzzer. Penn State won by 4 points.
She said she got teary eyed listening to those people yell… thousands of fans shouting out who they are, claiming their heritage, their colors, their mascot, their school… they were all shouting their declaration of belonging. They were Penn State people! (WWW.lectionary.org)
The Psalmist wants us to have that sensed of belonging. “We are… God’s people!” “We are… God’s people!”
We anticipate the presence of God with thanksgiving and praise in our hearts. We are so grateful and glad to be in his presence. We experience God’s place and presence as a place of grace and a safe place for God’s people.
So it is we anticipate being in God’s presence with joy.
IV. God Place is a Joyful Place, Psalm 100:1-2
Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy. Psalm 100:1-2
Wendell Berry has written a series of novels about people who lived in Port William, Kentucky. His novel Hannah Coulter focuses on the life of an elderly woman. One reviewer says her life is a window into a world of grief and disappointment, but also a keen observer of life’s joys and triumphs along the way. (goodreads reviews)
On one occasion in a conversation with her husband, they were talking about what it’s like when children grow up and go away… Hannah says, “The chance you had in this life is the life you’ve got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they’ve got them, and about what people make of other people’s lives, even about your children being gone, but you mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be someone else. What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.”
Then she says, “I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.” Rejoicing. Praying. Giving thanks in everything. (Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter, Shoemaker and Hoard, 2005, Page 113)
Now that I have already prepared these thoughts and have expressed my wondering as to why I thought Psalm 100 should have begun with 100:4 instead of 100:1-2… now I get it.
Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy. Psalm 1100:1-2 is about getting ready to go to public worship… to Church. It is about preparation in anticipation of being in the presence of God for worship.
We do not just walk into Church all bubbling over with thanksgiving and praise. It is likely that you arrive at this place feeling anything but great or glad. The kids did not likely jump out of bed and joyfully sit down for a bowl of Cherios before pitter padding off down the hallway to their rooms where they dressed themselves. It is unlikely they hurried out to the car to buckle themselves up all the while expressing a deep longing to get to church as soon as possible. It is unlikely that any of us went to bed last night dreaming of spending the morning in the blessed presence of God and each other.
But that is precisely what verses 1 and 2 advocate. You prepare your heart and you prepare your mind for entering God’s Place with thanksgiving and praise.
Hannah Coulter rightly discerns,
What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. Even though we are not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”
Neither are we all the way capable of generating enthusiastic and spontaneous and heartfelt expressions of joy, or thanksgiving and praise.
If you are wondering how we are supposed to do Psalm 100:4 and 5, it is by beginning with verses 1 and 2. It begins long before we get to church. It a begins with remembering God’s unfailing mercy and love. It begins with acknowledging who God is and what God has done in our lives. It begins with remembering the goodness and grace of God. It begins by realizing the simplest of things like the fact that we all take approximately 23,000 breathes every day. We do not give it a thought but if you know someone who suffers from COPD you quickly learn to be grateful for every breath.
I think the ability to recover a sense of joy is to bring to mind the blessings God has given you… the things that give you pleasure and joy. The ability to feel wonder and awe for God is to bring to mind the glorious things of life that display his power and grandeur. The ability to feel true gratitude comes from bringing to mind mercy and grace you have received from God. And the ability to feel and express thanksgiving to God is to recall the goodness of God in your life.
Conclusion
Yesterday in our Men’s Life Group Ev told of an occasion when he was vacationing in Paris and on the first day he went to see the Eiffel Tower… he stood looking up at the tower but the top half of the tower was lost in the fog. The second day… the Eiffel Tower was lost in the fog. On the third day… the fog had broken up and the sun was shining and there it was in all its glory… the Eiffel Tower.
Completed in 1889. 1,063 feet in height. An architectural wonder of iron lattice that served as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair there on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Once the tallest structure in the world and currently still the most “pay to tour” monument in the world.
Are the grandest of vistas in the world diminished simply because we cannot see them? Is the grandeur of the Eiffel Town diminished when it is obscured by the fog?
Even on those days when we cannot see or feel the wonder of God – the wonder of God is not in the least diminished. Despite the limitations of our emotions… God’s unfailing love continues forever…
And so it is,
We prepare our hearts to shout with joy to the Lord.
We prepare to worship the Lord with gladness.
We prepare to come before him singing with joy.
We prepare by acknowledging that the Lord is God!
We prepare to enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever.
