Sermon Tone Analysis

Psalm 100

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Introduction

Have you ever received something so great that you just didn’t know how to respond?

Perhaps it was a gift that was beyond what you expected or perhaps someone did something for you that took them a lot of time and was just what you needed.

How do you say thank you to them when just saying the words seems so inadequate?

How do we say thank you to God adequately?

The phrase “give thanks” occurs 34 times in the New International Version of the Bible.

Twenty of those times are in the Psalms.

This morning, I would like to look at one of those Psalms, Psalm 100.

This Psalm shows us different ways to say thank you to God and also some of the reasons why we can say thank you to God.

Our goal for today is to say thank you to God enthusiastically because we recognize that we have reason to do so.

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I.

Call to Give Thanks

How do we give thanks?

!! A.                 Shout for Joy

When I was a teenager we had a saying.

I wonder if anyone here has ever heard of this saying before or was it just in my circle of friends?

We would turn our forefinger in the air and say, “Double whoopee ding ding.”

The implication was mock enthusiastic response to something someone said or did.

What is the tone of our thanks to God? Do we offer it with mock enthusiasm, with little enthusiasm or great enthusiasm?

I have to admit that my praise and thanksgiving of God is quite reserved.

Why are we that way?

There was a fellow I knew who was from Trinidad.

He could not understand why we didn’t move when we were singing.

His culture was more enthusiastic in worship, our culture more reserved.

I wonder if that is a good thing.

I wonder if we are afraid to be enthusiastic because we are afraid of what others might think or perhaps we are afraid that it might get out of hand.

Whatever our reason, Psalm 100 is quite clear that we are called to an enthusiastic expression of thanks.

It calls for us to “shout to the Lord.”

Have you ever done that?

I know that some of the young people do it, but what about the rest of us?

Of course, this expression of enthusiastic praise is to be “to the Lord” as the text says.

This reminds us that the enthusiasm must be not for the sake of enthusiasm, but as an expression of our joy in the Lord.

As we think of this, we must also remember that it is the Lord we are thanking and that means we must do it with respect.

But an enthusiastic joyful shout and reverence are not mutually exclusive.

We can reverently shout to the Lord.

May we learn to do so!

In how many languages can we say thanks?

Let’s give it a try.

Saying thanks to God in many languages is appropriate as we read in this verse where this call to shout for joy is made to “all the earth.”

The whole world is to joyfully and enthusiastically give thanks and praise to the Lord.

Will we join in whole heartedly?

!! B.                 Serve the Lord

We are also called to serve the Lord.

The word serve is sometimes translated worship because it was a word used to describe service in the temple directed at worship.

Both ideas are included.

In fact, I don’t think it would be far out for us to see all of our service as an act of worship.

Is it possible to do homework, to work at our job, to do dishes, to serve meals as acts of worship?

What a wonderful expression of thanksgiving when we do so because we are serving the Lord as an expression of our worship of Him.

Once again, just in case we didn’t get it the first time, the writer calls us to do so “with gladness.”

When jokes exist in which the joy of Christians is questioned, we know that something is wrong.

You have heard them.

Why would a horse make a good Christian?

Because he has such a long face.

Or the quip that some Christians are so joyless it seems as if they have been baptized in vinegar.

We have so much reason to worship the Lord and give thanks to Him that we must use our whole life as an expression of thanks and do so with much joy.

If we have thankful hearts, let us allow our face and the rest of our body know.

I wonder if our conviction about the goodness of God would increase if our declaration were more enthusiastic.

!! C.                 Come Before Him

The third line in this part of the Psalm invites us to “come before Him.”

It is very likely that this Psalm, as many others, were sung by pilgrims making their way to the temple in Jerusalem.

They were in procession, going to the place where they could worship God and offer sacrifices to Him.

So the invitation is to come into the presence of God in order to declare His praise.

Today we can come before Him in any place.

Corporate worship is important and we will talk about that in a moment, but we don’t have to go to Jerusalem, to church or be with anybody else in order to come before Him.

In a quiet place in our home, when we are walking or driving or working, we can come into God’s presence and thank Him.

We have already noted that God’s invitation is to show a little enthusiasm in our thanksgiving.

If showing enthusiasm in public is difficult for us, why not begin by trying it at home.

When you are alone in the presence of God, why not shout?

Why not sing to Him, even if you have trouble finding the notes?

Why not actually get up and jump in His presence and loudly declare your thanks to God.

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II.

Because You Acknowledge God

Why is such thankful noise appropriate?

!! A.                 Know

It is appropriate because of whom we know.

Verse 3 calls us to “know that the Lord is God.”

This is an imperative and so something we must do.

Psalm 46:10 also invites us, “Be still and know that I am God.”

How do we obey this command?

Tate suggests three possible ways of understanding this.

He suggests that it might be a summons to learn.

It would therefore be an invitation to discover and learn about who God is.

But know could also mean to have confidence, to be assured that Jehovah is God.

If this is what is intended it is a call to have no doubt about God.

A third way of understanding the word “know” is that it means to acknowledge or confess.

Although it could mean any one of these things, perhaps it would be best to consider all three.

As we take time to learn to know who God is, we will become more and more convinced of His wonderful attributes.

As we do that, we are called to acknowledge and confess our faith in God.

Spurgeon says, “Our worship must be intelligent.

We ought to know whom we worship and why.”

What do we mean when we confess that the Lord is God?

Spurgeon suggests the following: that the Lord is God the only living and true God, our creator, our rightful owner, our sovereign ruler, our bountiful benefactor, a God of infinite mercy and good and a God of inviolable truth and faithfulness.

These are the things for which we give thanks to God.

!! B.                 He Made Us

The rest of the verse gives us some specific things to think about when it says, “He made us.”

God is the creator of everything.

The farthest stars are thousands of light years away.

The tiniest living thing in the universe is microscopic.

In between the vastness of space and the tiniest creature God has created human beings hold a special place.