“1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 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. 4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. 5 For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. ”
I imagine that each of us could quickly rattle off five or ten of our favorite songs. These songs are your favorite because they touch something inside you. Music has that power. There are songs that touch you when you are sad. There are songs that touch you when you feel on top of the world. There are songs that cheer you up. There are songs that call you to be better than you are. Songs touch something inside you.
Psalm 100 is of those songs. It carries the heading, “A psalm. For giving grateful praise.” This is a song for giving thanks. Since it is Thanksgiving, this is our song. If you are thankful today, this is your song. If you aren’t thankful, this is your song too. It is designed to touch something inside of you.
We are going to study this song in three points. First: worshipping the God we thank. Second: knowing the God we thank. Third: thanking the God who deserves thanks. Verses 1-2 call you to worship the God we thank. Verse 3 calls you to know the God you thank. Verses 4-5 summon you to give thanks to the God who deserves thanks.
First: worshipping the God we thank. This song of thanksgiving begins with a call to worship. The first lyrics are, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.”
Now everyone worships. It is what we were created to do. We humans were created to shout for joy for something. We were created to give ourselves over to something else. We were created to worship.
Now if a man won’t shout for joy to the Lord, He will shout for joy to something less. If a man won’t worship the Lord, He will worship something less. He will worship success. He will sacrifice everything on the altar of getting ahead. He will worship another person. That person can control him by giving love or withholding love. He will worship his own desires and do whatever they tell him. “His god will be his stomach,” as Paul put it. Everyone worships. Be wise and worship God.
God calls all the earth to worship Him. This wasn’t merely a command for Israel. This was a command for everyone. This verse was for the Babylonians. These verses was for the Egyptians. This verse is for the Americans. “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.”
God has the right to your worship. He has the right to your ultimate allegiance. He created you. He sustained you through the night last night. He gave the industry and resources needed to supply the food that you are going to feast on today. Every good and perfect gift that you enjoy came from Him. He has the right to your worship. Success doesn’t. Other people don’t. Your desires don’t. God does.
He’s got the right to say, “Shout for joy to the me, all the earth.” He the right to say, ‘Donald Trump, shout for joy to me.’ He’s got a right to say, ‘Adam Eisenga,’ shout for joy to me. He has the right to say your name and then say, ‘shout for joy to me.’
Today these shouts of joy take a particular form. We are here today to give thanks to God. Our government has wisely set this day aside for the giving of thanks. But thankfulness implies a benefactor. Whenever you say, ‘thank you,’ you say it to someone. To whom is an atheist thankful today? To the process of evolution that led to him? To biochemical impulses that dictate her behavior? ‘As we gather around this table, evolutionary processes, we thank you that we find ourselves at the top of the food chain.’ ‘As we gather together as a family, biochemical impulses, we thank you that you give us what we need to perceive this as a pleasurable experience.’ There can be no real thanksgiving without someone to thank. Don’t give your life over to something that unworthy. Worship God. Thank Him for what He has given you.
Now it is very possible that there is someone here this morning who finds the whole idea of thanking God in worship a bit silly. For you God is more of an idea than a Person. Ideas don’t listen when you say, ‘thank you.’ To you, this call to worship the Lord with gladness sounds hollow. You wonder if anyone ever really does truly worship anyway or if it is just going through the motions. If this is you, I want you to recognize that other people do shout for joy to the Lord with complete sincerity. They do worship the Lord with gladness even when life is difficult not because they are foolish but because they are wise.
Now if you sincerely keep these verses and truly do worship God, you know that this experience is a work of the Holy Spirit. Your longing to shout for joy to God because He has given you reasons for thanksgiving is a work of the Spirit. Seeing surrendering yourself to God as a glad activity can only happen by the work of the Spirit. You need to ask yourself if any of that can be said of you. Have you ever truly worshipped God?
He doesn’t need to earn your worship. He has a right to it. He has the right to call the whole world to worship. Spouses don’t need to earn each other’s faithfulness. God does not need to earn your worship.
Now if you know God, you know that He is worthy of everything you are. If you don’t know God, you can know God. That is our second point: knowing the God we thank.
God calls you to worship Him but to do so, you must know Him. You can’t worship a God you don’t know. You can’t thank a God you don’t know. To worship the Lord, you must know Him. “Know that the Lord is God,” as verse 3 puts it.
The word ‘Lord’ in this verse is written with capital letters to indicate that, in the Hebrew, this is the covenant name for the Lord – Yahweh. “Know that Yahweh is God.” This is God’s name. We tend to use the word ‘God’ as a name. I do it too, but it isn’t really His name. ‘God’ isn’t His name any more than ‘human’ is your name. A human is what you are. A God is what Yahweh is. The word ‘God’ denotes a class of beings just as the word ‘human’ denotes a class of beings. The difference, of course, is that there are 7.75 billion members of the human group and only one members of the ‘God’ group: “Know that Yahweh is God.”
You can know the only God. Did you know that there are about 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe? In each of those galaxies there are, on average, 100 billion stars. So there are, on average, 100 billion stars in each of the 10 billion galaxies. Now you can be on friendly terms with the God who created each of those stars and each of the planets revolving around each of those stars. ‘Creator of all the universe—personal friend of mine.’
Now I hope that you find yourself on very familiar terms with the God who created those 10 billion galaxies with, on average, 100 billion stars in each. I hope you know this God and that you find your identity in the fact that He knows you.
The world scoffs at that idea. The world gives token acknowledgement to the divine, but it doesn’t really think that this God has spoken or that this God listens. The world simply does not know God. That is the difference between the world and the people of God.
Now if you don’t think that God can be known in a personal way, what then do you do with Jesus? Saying that he is a fictional character isn’t merely historically irresponsible. It is also even more problematic than dealing with him as a historical figure because if he is merely made up then you need to explain how a bunch of Jewish day laborers concocted the most remarkable personality of all time and why went to their deaths defending their own creation.
At the end of the day, you have to deal with Jesus and Jesus was quite clear that God can be known. In fact, he said that knowing God was what life is actually about, “Now this is eternal life,” he said, “that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.”
Now if you know God, then you can know yourself. If you know God, you find your identity in the fact that you belong to Him. “Know that the Lord is God,” says the Psalmist, “It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.”
When you know God, you can know yourself because you know that you are God’s. God created you for Himself and when you know Him you come to know yourself. You didn’t create yourself. You don’t belong to yourself. Our culture is in disarray right now because people are trying to belong to themselves. They are trying to find their identity in belonging to themselves. “It is me who made me, and I am mine; I am my own person. I am my own shepherd.” It isn’t going very well.
You will never understand yourself until you understand that you were created to belong to God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a poem about this as he sat in prison awaiting execution at the hands of Hitler. Such a situation would make any man ponder the point of his own life. Bonhoeffer wrote, “Who am I? They often tell me I stepped from my cell’s confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country house. Who am I? They often tell me I used to speak to my warders freely and friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command. Who am I? They also tell me I bore the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win. Am I then really that which other men tell of? Or am I only what I myself know of myself? Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness, tossing in expectations of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint, and ready to say farewell to it all. Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!”
That is simply Bonhoeffer’s meditation on verse 3, “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.”
Now you either find your identity in that truth or you, like the culture around you, are casting about trying to discover who you are. Don’t fall into that sad, self-destructive trap. Find your identity in the God. You can know Him.
If you have, be thankful. The only reason you aren’t falling into the sad, self-destructive trap of our culture is because you know Him. You know Him by way of His Son. If you want to know God, know Jesus. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” he said, “no one comes to the Father except through me.”
Now you can spend your time wondering why there is no other way to God, or you can take the path that is clearly marked out for you. Imagine that you are standing on the edge of a gorge. On the other side of this gorge is the most beautiful hot spring imaginable. You’ve read about it in travel guides. You can’t wait to get in. There is, however, only one bridge across this gorge. If you really want to get in that hot spring, you won’t refuse to cross until someone explains to you why there is only one bridge. You will cross that bridge. If you want to know God, you won’t refuse to come to Jesus until someone explains to you why he is the only way. You will come to Jesus.
It is when you know God through Jesus that you can thank God. We see that in our final point: thanking the God who deserves thanks.
No one gives thanks without reason. If you say, ‘thank you,’ you do so because someone has given you good reason to say it. Now we are here to thank God today, but why? Yes, He doesn’t need to earn our worship, but why are we thanking him? Verse 4 explains, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”
You give thanks because the Lord is good. You give thanks because His love endures to all generations. You give for who God is—the Lord is good. You give thanks for what God does—His love endures to all generations.
In a bit, we will be passing the microphone around to share our thanksgivings. Notice that a good many of these thanksgivings will involve who God is and what God has done. People will give thanks to God because of who He is—the Lord is good. People will give thanks to God because of what God does—His love endures to all generations.
Perhaps you find it hard to give thanks today. Perhaps you wish today were called grievance-giving instead of Thanksgiving. If that is the case, Scripture calls you to fix your attention on who God is—the Lord is good. Scripture calls you to fix your attention on what God does—His love endures to all generations.
Fix your attention on who God is. You see who God is in His word. “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your word.” You see who God is in His Son. “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, he has made Him known.”
Be thankful for what Scripture and the Son have revealed about God. Imagine if God were an ogre rather than the God Jesus and Scripture reveal Him to be. Imagine if you found out that the God who created you do so to manipulate you or torment you rather than love you.
I remember receiving my report cards in the mail. It was always a bit nerve wracking to open that envelope and have those grades revealed. Picture Jesus and Scripture as that envelope; you open them and inside God is revealed. It is a bit nerve wracking to know what God is really like because He is unavoidable. What a relief to realize that He is who Jesus and Scripture reveal Him to be. What a reason for thanksgiving. To give thanks, fix your attention on who God is.
To give thanks, fix your attention on what God has done; “His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”
Now you might be anxious this morning because you are focusing on what you wish God would do. You might be envious this morning because you are focusing on changes that you wish God would make. You need to put your focus on what He has done. You have many signs of His steadfast love in your life. If you did indeed count your blessings, you would be surprised at what the Lord has done.
You always have His clearest sign of love and this clearest sign of love is a reminder that His love will continue. “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will He not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
There are doubtlessly many aspects of your life that are disappointing. This promise tells you that the Father isn’t done giving. If you are thankful for Jesus, one day you will be thankful for all things. You are still waiting for that day, but today you do have reasons for thanksgiving.
So this is your song. Perhaps you find it easy to sing it today. Perhaps you don’t, but it is still your song. You are still part of His people, the sheep of His pasture. He is still good. His love still continues to all generations, including yours. He is still worthy of your worship. He is still worthy of your thanks. Amen.