Thanksgiving 2022: Give Thanks!
Psalm 100
Introduction: Today most of us, along
with millions across our nation, will gather with family or friends for
Thanksgiving. Fewer people will
acknowledge and celebrate God as the source of our many blessings. Lincoln’s
Thanksgiving Proclamation is a powerful call that we need to hear afresh:
"It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own
their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and
transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance
will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in
the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed
whose God is the Lord. We know that by His divine law, nations, like
individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May
we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the
land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the
needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?
We
have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been
preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers,
wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God.
We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied
and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the
deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some
superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we
have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and
preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
It
has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently, and
gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American
people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the
It sounds like he
understood “Who” we are to be grateful toward! It seems odd to hear people
talking about being “thankful” in some abstract sense, but speaking of it as a vague
“feeling” rather than an attitude toward a Person. What does that even mean? For
the believer, we are grateful to God, our Maker and Redeemer, the One from whom
all blessings flow. Psalm 100 is a call to praise the God who is, to come
before Him with a thankful heart, even though we live in a world in Chaos.
The
Big Idea: We
can come before the Lord with a thankful heart knowing that He loves us, He
will care for us, and He will keep His promises.
I.
Give thanks that we know God! We should be thankful that
we can joyfully approach and worship the God who IS (1,2)!
A PSALM FOR GIVING THANKS.
Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
2 Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with
singing!
First of all we see this Psalm is
titled, A PSALM FOR GIVING
THANKS… There are a number of psalms that focus on thanksgiving, but this is
the only one that is specifically called a “Psalm for Thanksgiving” in its
ancient heading. It was written to guide God’s people into celebrating Yahweh
and His goodness and His blessings toward them. Though they definitely overlap,
“praise” is usually focused on God’s character and attributes (and we will see
that also in these verses), while “thanksgiving” focuses on praise toward God
for what He has done. He is involved in history, He is present in our lives. He
saves and He sustains His people. His faithfulness and His loyal love are
demonstrated in history and in our lives.
Psalm 100 begins with a call to celebrate
God’s work: “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!” The cry of celebration is to go out to the
LORD. The name “Yahweh” is used repeatedly in this psalm. It is the name that
was revealed to Moses from the burning bush, the name that is associated especially
with God’s covenant faithfulness. Look for a moment at Exodus 3...
13 Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to
them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is
his name?' what shall I say to them?"
14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said,
"Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" 15 God also said to Moses,
"Say this to the people of Israel, 'The LORD [Yahweh], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and thus I
am to be remembered throughout all generations... (Exodus 3:13-15).
This psalm of thanksgiving is
all about Yahweh. In this psalm, the name is mentioned four times in
five verses. Another ten times the pronouns “He,” “His,” or “Him” are used in
referring to the Lord. This psalm is not talking about a vague good feeling or
an “attitude of gratitude.” We are called to praise the God who is, the God who
is active in human history, the One from whom all blessings flow.
The people are called upon to “...make a joyful noise...” to the LORD (100:1).
With my poor “singing” I sometimes quote this verse as justification, but that
is not the idea! The same word was used
to describe the shout of the people when they circled Jericho for the seventh
time on the seventh day as the conquest began...
And at the seventh time, when
the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, "Shout,
for the LORD has given you the city...” (Josh 6:16).
It was a shout of faith, a
battle cry anticipating the victory God was about to give. It also was the term
that described the celebration when the foundation of the second temple was
laid...
And they sang responsively,
praising and giving thanks to the LORD, "For he is good, for his steadfast
love endures forever toward Israel." And all the people shouted with a
great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house
of the LORD was laid... (Ezra 3:11).
It was a joyful shout, a cry of celebration for
what God had done. The point is God is faithful, He is trustworthy and good,
and powerful to do all that He has promised.
Listen, no matter what else is going on in your life, if you know God,
you have reason to celebrate, you have reason to be thankful!
The call to praise goes out to “all the earth.” God is the One to whom
all humanity owes allegiance. This song was part of the worship of Israel, but
the invitation is to go out to all the earth. Humans have nowhere else to turn,
“...there is no other name under heaven,
given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). That is why we
need to take seriously the mission that has been entrusted to us. God has
commissioned us to be His witnesses, starting right where we are. He has placed
you where you are, in this church, in this community, in your workplace or
school, in your family. God plans for us
to be a “world changer” right where He has placed us. You can’t change the
whole world, but you can impact yours! Have you listed the 8 to 15 people in your oikos? Pray, live a life of faith, and be ready to give a reason for the
hope He has given you!
“Serve the LORD
with gladness!” The word “serve” is used of slaves and servants, and also of religious
service. Mary used the Greek parallel term when she said at the angel’s
announcement, “Behold the Lord’s servant…”
She had a heart of obedi-ence because of what God had done. When Paul tells the Romans to “Present their bodies to God as living
sacrifices…” he says it is their reasonable “service of worship” (Rom 12:1,2). So we should serve him,
not reluctantly, but with gladness. We have reason to be filled with joy, and
we should serve Him not reluctantly, but joyfully!
“Come
into his presence with singing!” The idea of approaching God, would not
have been taken lightly. The OT emphasized the transcendence of God, He is
wholly “other,” holy and majestic. His presence in the Holy of Holies, the most
inner part of the Tabernacle and of the Temple, was so sacred only the High
Priest could approach Him, and that only once a year, on the Day of
Atonement. But that all changed at
Calvary, as the Lamb was slain, once for all. We remember the scene described
in Matthew 27:50-51 at the hour of the crucifixion,
“And Jesus cried out again
with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two,
from top to bottom...”
His death provided the
atonement, once and for all, that opened access to the presence of God for all
who would believe. But the psalmist is writing a thousand years before the
cross. The veil of separation had not yet
been abolished. Yet the call here is to come… to enter His presence with
singing! The very idea that God, who is perfect, who is holy, would invite
humans to worship Him is astounding. Truly amazing grace! We can come before the Lord
with a thankful heart knowing that He loves us, He will care for us, and that He
will keep His promises.
II. Give thanks that we
know that we are His!
We should be thankful that the God who made us is our Good Shepherd (3).
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.
3 Know that the
LORD, he is God! Yahweh, and He alone, is God. The pronoun makes the
point emphatically. The writer doesn’t just say “The Lord is God.” He adds
emphasis, he underscores the sense emphatically by saying “The LORD, HE is God!” Idolatry is worshipping someone or
something other than the one true God. If we redefine “god” as we imagine Him,
rather than as He has revealed himself, we are guilty of idolatry. If we decide
that we are the masters of our own fate, that we alone are on the throne of our
life, we are idolaters. If we recognize the truth about God, about who He is
and what He has done, we realize that we don’t deserve anything. Someone has
said, “You can't be grateful for something you feel entitled to.” That
sense of entitlement is pervasive in our culture, and it is the reason that
many people find no reason to be thankful. I’ve found a good source of
practical theology in my favorite comic strip. A Peanuts cartoon pictured Charlie Brown bringing out
Snoopy’s dinner on Thanksgiving Day. But it was just his usual dog food in a
bowl. Snoopy took one look at the dog food and thought,
"This isn’t fair. The
rest of the world today is eating turkey with all the trimmings and all I get
is dog food! Because I’m a dog, all I get is dog food." He stood there and
stared at his dog food for a moment. Then he said, "I guess it could be
worse. I could be a turkey!”
Are you
thankful, or do you feel entitled to the blessings you have? Thankfulness is
the opposite of selfishness. The selfish person says, "I deserve what comes to me! Other people ought
to make me happy." But the mature Christian realizes that he deserves
nothing, and that life itself is a gift from God, and that the blessings of
life come only from His bountiful hand. Every good and perfect gift comes from
above, from the God who made us.
It is he who made us, and we are his...
One of the things kids always do is ask questions. It
never really stops, they might get more sophisticated as time goes on. “Daddy, why...” The Bible offers answers.
Some manuscripts add the phrase “...and
not we ourselves...” The idea is implicit in what the psalmist is saying.
We are not autonomous, we did not create ourselves neither did we come in
existence through a series of chance, random processes. Why should we worship Him? We are His—He is our creator. The first verse of the Bible is exactly where
many people stumble: “In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth.” If we can acknowledge the truth of
that verse, that God is eternal and that He is the Creator, that means that all
the universe belongs to Him. Thomas à Kempis said “If you remember the dignity of the Giver, no
gift will seem small or mean, for nothing can be valueless that is given by the
most high God.” If God is the
Creator, it means that
humans are his creatures and so we owe Him our allegiance. The next phrase goes further, it gets even
more personal...
…we
are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. The parallel statements here are interesting.
First, “we are His people.” And then,
as if to avoid the pride that could so easily well up at that idea, “...the sheep of His pasture...” We are not
independent. He made us, and He bought us, we were bought with a price. We are
His. The psalmist uses this metaphor, which must be as humbling as it is
encouraging: the sheep of his pasture. He
is the Good Shepherd. We are His sheep. For Jews in Palestine that would have
been immediately understood. We depend upon Him for everything. He protects us,
He leads us to still water and to green pastures. He protects us from the
enemy. Jesus later would say that the shepherd would lay down his life for
his sheep (John 10:11). Think of what that means! Because of Him, because
of his willing self-sacrifice, we who believe are reconciled to God! So we can come before the Lord with a thankful heart knowing
that He loves us, He will care for us, and He will keep His promises.
III. Give thanks that we
can trust Him! We
should be thankful that God is good and that He is faithful to keep His
promises, we can trust Him in all things (4, 5).
4 Enter
his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him;
bless his name! 5 For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
So, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!” The content of the joyful noise we are to
make to the Lord is spelled out in more detail: thanksgiving and praise. Kids
can teach us something about being thankful...
A Sunday School teacher
asked her class what they were thankful for. A little girl said "I’m
thankful for my bedroom. My younger brothers have to share a room. But I get to
have a room all for myself! I thank God for my bedroom!" Next, a little
boy said, "I’m thankful for my puppy. I got him as a present for my
birthday, and I play with him every day. I thank God for my puppy." Another
boy thought for a moment and said “I’m thankful for my glasses." My
glasses. The teacher was surprised. She said "Why are you thankful for
your glasses?" He said, “Because they keep the boys from hitting me and
they keep the girls from kissing me!”
We have reason to be thankful. Notice
that verse 5 begins with the word, “For…”
David proceeds to give three reasons that we should sing our Thanksgiving to
the Lord…
First, “…the LORD is good…” We use that phrase freely when we have answers
to prayer that we want, but He is Good, all the time. The word tob was first used at each stage of the
creation story, God created, and He said it was “good.” Later in the Old
Testament the word reflects the blessings of the covenant, as we see God’s
commitment to His design in creation. He acts in the way that is best, he
promises to work everything together for our good and for His glory.
That is easy to say when we get what we want, when we feel blessed. But it’s
still true when we can’t see what God might be doing in the hard times. C.S.
Lewis said, “We ought to give thanks for
all fortune: if it is good, because it is good; if bad, because it works in us
patience, humility, contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.”
In other words, we are reminded that we are pilgrims in this fallen world. We
are here, sharing in the sufferings of Christ, so that we can carry out the
mission that has been entrusted to us. The Lord is always good.
Then a pair of parallel statements: “…his steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations...” His love and his faithfulness are often mentioned together. His chesed, covenantal love, His steadfast love never changes… One translation translates, “his loyal love.” I like that. Our love can be temperamental, circumstantial, and selfish. God’s love never changes. He is faithful, loyal, unchanging. He showed us His love in sparing not the Son, but delivering Him up for us all. That kind of love never changes.
The parallel term, emuhah, reinforces that idea. The word appears only 49 times in the OT, many of those in the Psalms. It appears 7 times in Psalm 89 alone. For example,
Psalm 89:1-2 - "I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. 2 For I said, "Steadfast love will be built up forever; in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness."
The first use of the word in the Hebrew Bible is in Exodus 17, where Aaron and Hur were holding up the hands of Moses so they remained, "steady." God remains steady, faithful, steadfast. Even when we doubt or when we fail, He is faithful. Give
thanks!
What
is God saying to me in this passage? We can come before the Lord with a thankful heart knowing
that He loves us, He will care for us, and that He will keep His promises.
What
would God have me to do in response to this passage? William Law said,
"Would
you know who is the greatest saint in the world: It is not he who prays most or
fasts most, it is not he who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance,
chastity or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills
everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God's
goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it."
Is your heart filled with a
genuine attitude of gratitude to God for all that He is, for all that He has
done?
Someone said, “The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.” Will you take time to express your praise and thanksgiving to Him this week? This week, share with someone your grateful heart, and acknowledge the One to whom you are thankful. AMEN.
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