Thanksgiving Praise

Topical  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  56:44
0 ratings
· 126 views
Files
Notes
Transcript
Introduction: This week we are celebrating Thanksgiving and because of the power of the flesh and circumstances in the world, many Christians who would normally be worrying about preparing food, travel, eating, entertaining, spending time with family and friends now will be overshadow by government restrictions due to COVID-19. If the normal traditional worries wasn’t enough, now many catapulted in further depression or a future full of anxiety.
I want to remind us this evening that our faith in the Lord’s sovereignty and grace sufficient for our encounters in this world.
Paul records Jesus is 2 Cor 12:9 saying,
2 Corinthians 12:9 NKJV
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
God used Paul’s burdens and afflictions to teach him more dependency on God and the sufficiency of His grace. Because Paul knew this truth and applied this truth in his life and ministry he began to boast about the power of Christ working in and through him.
We desperately need to be reminded of this truth and learn to apply it in our own life.
I want us to look at Psalm 100 which is known as the thanksgiving Psalm.
Psalm 100 NKJV
A Psalm of Thanksgiving. 1 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing. 3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. 4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. 5 For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.
This Psalm gave the Israelites a two-fold call to worship the LORD and each time it was followed by the reasons to praise Him. This truth transcends all time, all generations, and calls all people, especially those who have received redemption to show our gratitude and thanksgiving toward our Creator and Redeemer all the time regardless of circumstances. Or the Apostle Paul would say especially during trying times because Christ grace is sufficient to carry us through whatever we are facing.
There is a definite pattern in the Psalm, as follows:
Call to worship (vv, 1, 2).
Why God should be worshiped (v. 3).
Call to worship (v. 4).
Why God should be worshiped (v, 5).
Seven elements of worship are suggested:
Shout joyfully (v. 1).
Serve the LORD with gladness (v. 2a).
Come before Him with singing (v. 2b).
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving (v. 4a).
Enter His courts with praise (v. 4b).
Be thankful to Him (v. 4c).
Bless His name (v. 4d).
We should praise Him because of who He is. He is our:
LORD (v. 1).
God (v. 3a).
Creator (v. 3b).
Owner (v. 3c).
Shepherd (v. 3d).
We should praise Him because of His attributes:
He is good (v. 5).
His mercy is everlasting (v. 5).
His truth endures to all generations (v. 5).
Psalm 100 is the grand finale of a cluster of psalms that begin in Psalm 94. The psalmist calls on all the earth to come to God and shout for joy. Nations are to recognize who the LORD is and ascribe to Him the glory due His Name.
In gathering tonight in worship we are called to praise our Father, our Creator, our Redeemer, because He reigns and we can rejoice knowing He reigns.
But, how should we show that gratitude and thanksgiving to God? We cannot thank God by giving Him something. He needs nothing from us. So, what can we do?
Well, in verses 1 through 3 the Psalmist reminds us three ways in offering our praise and thanksgiving to God.
To shout, to worship, and to come, which is followed by a statement about the LORD, telling us why we should give praise and thanksgiving.
Its helpful to understand that the shout in verse 1 can be translated as glad shout, such as loyal subjects might utter when the king appears among them, the emphasis being on the gladness.
Spurgeon commented on this verse in saying,
“Our happy God should be worshipped by a happy people; a cheerful spirit is in keeping with His nature, His acts, and the gratitude which we should cherish for His mercies.”
Psalm 95:1–2 NKJV
1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
Our joy and gladness as Christians should always lead to worshipping and serving God, for His is the only true God.
Worship leads to service and true service to worship.
A vital part of worship is presenting ourselves:
to the Lord for His service;
to walk worthy of the calling with which we were called.
The New Testament instructs us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to Him. This is an everyday commitment, where what happens in church is not out of step with how we live from day to day.
The Apostle Paul exhorts Christians to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service’ (Romans 12:1). Because of God’s great love and mercies, we should serve Him willingly and with joy. We should also remember what a tremendous privilege it is to be the servants of such a great King!
The Psalmist also suggest we should show our gratitude and thanksgiving to God by coming to Him in verse 2.
We should come before the Lord’s presence with songs of joy on our lips.
This command is directed to our demeanor or attitude when we come to God’s house for worship.
We are to approach Him reverently, yes, but also with joyful hearts and joyful songs.
The Lord’s presence was centered in the temple in the Old Testament.
Now, both the church and our bodies are designated as the house of God.
Our attitude about gathering together in worship on a night like together, or on any other time designed as formal worship of God should be one of anticipation and joy. Never should we say, “I have to go to church today.” To the contrary, serving the Lord and going to His house is a high privilege and ought to be among the greatest joys in our lives (Ps. 122:1). We should serve the Lord cheerfully and worship Him wholeheartedly. Anything less is unworthy of God and His great love for us.
Those are three ways the Psalmists encourages every believer to show our gratitude and thanksgiving. The answer to why must we give God praise and thanks is found in verse 3.
Psalm 100:3 NKJV
3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
The Psalmist tells us that our praise of God and thanksgiving to God comes from knowing Him: we must know who we are thanking. This truth ends up being source of our devotion and of all our obedience.
We cannot rightly thank or worship a God who is unknown to us. We cannot live what we do not know.
The first thing we should notice in verse 3 is the connection between knowing God as Creator and knowing ourselves as His creatures.
Psalm 100:3 NKJV
3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
The natural result of knowing God is to know ourselves, and that the only way we really know ourselves is by knowing God. Knowing God and knowing ourselves always go together.
There are two basics truths that are revealed in verse 3 that ends up being our motivation in praising and giving thanks to God.
First, knowing God as our Creator
What happens to us when we do not know God as Creator? We imagine that we are our own creators. The appeal of evolution is that it does away with the need for God.
So, if we do not know God as our Creator, then we have no need to be thankful. In retrospect, it is only when we know God as our Creator that we know ourselves as His creatures and find ourselves appropriately thankful to Him.
Our second motivation is Knowing God as Redeemer
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Even more important than knowing God as Creator is knowing Him as Redeemer, which is what the words “His people” and “the sheep of His pasture” ultimately refer to.
Scripture tells us that we are not our own for we are bought with a price.
1 Corinthians 6:20 NKJV
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ ‘gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us … and purify for Himself His own special people.
Titus 2:13–14 NKJV
13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
If there is no other reason why we must be thankful to God it is because He has both made us and redeemed us. No one should be more thankful to God than the sheep who are cared for by the Good Shepherd.
Our second call to worship and reason to praise Him is in verses 4 and 5.
Psalm 100:4–5 NKJV
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. 5 For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.
One of the characteristics of the ungodly world under the wrath of God is its unthankful spirit (Romans 1:21).
Let that not be true of any of us here tonight. We are called by Scripture to bless His name. Meeting together tonight in public worship declares to us and to those who witness our gathering from the world that God is worthy to be praise and worshipped. Therefore, let’s us continue to offer our lives be an act of worship in private and in public according to the Hebrew writer.
Hebrews 13:15 NKJV
15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
The final verse, verse 5 explains why you and I should offer praise and thanksgiving to God. The Psalmists invites us to be thankful to God because of who He is. God is good, His love and mercy is everlasting, and His truth transcends time itself because its never changing.
I would propose to you that the Lord God is worthy of a harvest festival of thanksgiving. It has been pointed out by many that “Thanksgiving” is the offering of thanks and it is not complete until there is giving.
If you are a Christian, God has called you to Christ.
Jesus paid the ultimate price for your salvation and reconciliation to God, and the Holy Spirit is the one person who is working in your sanctification process.
In light of this truth in Psalm 100 and all the truth in God’s Word, will you and I proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light?
Let us enjoy this Thanksgiving and the thanksgiving of every day by giving praise to the One who is worthy to be worship.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more