Psalm 100 - Thanksgiving
It was not difficult to come up with a summary title for Psalm 100 because that summary is in the superscription:
A Psalm for Thanksgiving.
The superscriptions were attached to the psalms before the time of Jesus. Many feel that they should be considered part of the inspired text.
We are often encouraged to give thanks in the Scriptures. “It is good to give thanks," as we saw in Psalm 92:1.
In 2020 we had our first Timothy Leadership Training (TLT) International Teleconference because of the pandemic COVID-19, which eliminated travel for many months. Attending the training were pastors and church leaders from many countries, including two brothers from Bangladesh. One morning following the week of training, they video-called as they were beginning their evening Bible study. What an opportunity for thanksgiving! The only association with them had been their participation in the training. But having spent a week of training together (3 hours/day for 5 days = 15 hours), they and their families had become brothers and sisters in Christ. What a joy to receive a video call from them! Truly a moment of thanksgiving for what God had done.
The Exhortation to Praise (v. 1-2)
Again the psalmist encourages us to shout joyfully to the Lord and to come before Him with joyful singing. All the earth is to do this, with an attitude of service and with gladness.
Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing. (Psalm 100: 1, 2, NASB)
The psalmist challenges us - how do we prepare for our worship? Do we come before Him with gladness? Think practically for a moment - as we get ready for church each week, are our hearts full of gladness? Or are we caught up in the details of preparation: getting the family ready, being on time, finding a place to park, sitting in the right place, noticing all of the people around us, being distracted by all of the things and people in the church which causes us to be critical? Don’t we all wrestle with these things? By the time the service starts, we are often far from “gladness."
And yet, that is the challenge, isn’t it? To have a heart that is in tune with God as we begin. Most churches will have music playing before the service - the “prelude music." In some churches, it might be the organ or piano. In other churches, it might be the worship band. Others will play recorded music. Our challenge is to turn that prelude music into heart preparation music. The music should move the distractions out of our minds to let our hearts overflow with gladness. When it is our turn to express worship, we can genuinely shout joyfully and come before Him with joyful singing.
Sometimes we may feel that our singing is pointless. Why bother? The accompaniment is so loud that we may not be able to hear ourselves, let alone anyone else in the room. Or we don’t feel our voice is good enough that anyone should listen to it. But that is not the point - it is not about anyone else hearing it - it is about expressing praise to God. There is a big difference in perspective here. We are responding to who God is and what He has done.
The Reasons to Praise (v. 3)
When we praise, we are encouraged to think actively about God. We are to remember who He is and what He has done.
Know that the Lord Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. (Psalm 100: 3)
1) Know that the Lord Himself is God.
If you were to ask the average person in America, “what are the first two of the Ten Commandments?”, they would probably say, “do not murder and do not commit adultery." But in the Ten Commandments delivered by God to the people of Israel in Exodus 20 and repeated in Deuteronomy 6, the first commands are not about murder and adultery. Those commands are in the second five, not the first. The first commands are about the nature of God Himself.
Then God spoke all these words, saying,
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before Me.
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. (Exodus 20: 1-12, NASB)
Command #1 - no other gods
Command #2 - no idols
Command #3 - don’t take the name of the Lord in vain
Command #4 - remember the Sabbath
Command #5 - honor your parents - the command with a promise
We are to know who God is. He is God of heaven and earth and the creator of all of it. He is the King of His Kingdom and the sustainer of all of it. We are to remember these things as we worship, we are not to ignore them, nor forget them, nor be distracted from them. He made us - we did not make Him.
When you think about it, isn’t this the false teaching which has been coming from our universities since the last century? That God is simply a manufactured creation of human minds that need a crutch? That the concept of a god is simply the need to create a way to answer the unanswerable? The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) popularized the "God is dead" movement. For specific quotations, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead
Nietzsche used the phrase, "God is dead", to summarize the effect and consequence that the Age of Enlightenment had had on the centrality of the concept of God within Western European civilization, which had been essentially Christian since the later Roman Empire. The Enlightenment had brought about the triumph of scientific rationality over sacred revelation; the rise of philosophical materialism and Naturalism that had dispensed with the belief in or role of God in human affairs and the destiny of the world.
Many in our modern culture have adopted this view of reality, both in the sciences and in the humanities. For those trained at universities, it is difficult to stand for any other worldview without ridicule.
And yet, the psalmist exhorts us to know that God is. He exists, He is involved, and He is present.
It is He who has made us, not the other way around.
2) We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
The image of God as the shepherd is seen clearly in two passages: Psalm 23 and Isaiah 40.
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23: 1-4, NASB)
Behold, the Lord God will come with might,
With His arm ruling for Him.
Behold, His reward is with Him
And His recompense before Him.
Like a shepherd He will tend His flock,
In His arm He will gather the lambs
And carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the nursing ewes. (Isaiah 40: 10-11, NASB)
The first course of Timothy Leadership Training is entitled “Caring for God’s People." It emphasizes that as God shepherds His people, so we should imitate God in shepherding the flock of God to which He has called us to oversee. One of the more critical aspects of this shepherding is getting to know the sheep and having the sheep know the shepherd, which is often best accomplished through the ministry of visitation. So as God is our shepherd, He wants us also to be shepherds.
We recognize that we are His people. We are the sheep of His pasture. Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd.
“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. (John 10: 11-15, NASB)
The benediction of the book of Hebrews draws attention to Jesus as the Great Shepherd.
Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13: 20-21, NASB)
These are two fundamental truths. God is the creator, and God is the shepherd. He is magnificent in a macro sense as Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, His kingdom. In a micro sense, He shepherds of each one of us with individual care.
Invitation to Enter (v. 4-5)
We are not to stand outside and observe from afar.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
For the Lord is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100: 4-5, NASB)
He invites us to enter. We walk through the gates of the temple and into the courts.
a) Imagine walking through the gates of the temple of David and Solomon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon%27s_Temple
The accompanying picture is an artist’s rendering of the inner court. The pillars in the background outline the colonnade. One walked through the colonnade's gates to enter into the inner court, where the sanctuary lay.
b) Imagine entering the second temple of Herod, through the gates which Jesus and the apostles walked on many occasions.
The second picture is a model of the second temple on display in the Israel Museum. The second temple was built upon the same general scheme as the first but was much more ornate. It was one of the great wonders of the ancient world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple
From the outer gates into the inner court, one would have observed the magnificence of the sanctuary inside.
The temple in the heavenly places was the template for both the first and second temples.
The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord is on his heavenly throne.
He observes everyone on earth;
his eyes examine them. (Psalm 11:4, NASB)
After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.” Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones, I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads. (Revelation 4: 1-4, NASB)
We enter into the presence of the Lord.
We enter with the right attitude and with a heart prepared in advance to worship.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
For the Lord is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100: 4-5, NASB)
We enter with thanksgiving.
We enter with praise.
We are to enter prepared to do things, rather than simply sit and observe:
Give thanks to Him.
Bless His name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits; (Psalm 103:2, NASB) - a great list follows of 5 ways in which we bless the Lord.
Why are we to be active in our worship?
1) Because the Lord is good.
He is holy. He does not sin. (Psalm 99)
2) Because the lovingkindness of the Lord is everlasting.
"Hesed” love (Hebrew, OT), His “agape” love (Greek, NT), never change. His love is an eternal and unchanging attribute.
3) Because the Lord is faithful to all generations.
God is timeless, meaning that time does not limit Him as it does us. He is eternal, and therefore He is the same to every generation.
Thus, we give Him thanks, which is our appropriate response in worship. As we prepare for worship each week, our challenge is to be well prepared to engage in worship.