A Psalm for Thanksgiving - Psalm 100 (Psalms 100)

0:43I haven't heard back from him, so hopefully he knows I was kidding. But in all seriousness, it is a privilege to be with you all this morning. It's a privilege to preach God's Word. And so I hope you came to hear God's Word. Of course, since it's the week of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be appropriate and a perfect opportunity to do a study on thankfulness. And so as I was studying that, thankfulness has been on my mind this week. And I began asking myself, am I thankful?

1:20Am I thankful? Does that describe me? And what does that look like? What does it look like to be a thankful person? How do we give thanks? Should we give thanks? Why should we give thanks? And so all these questions were in my mind, and as I studied the scriptures, I hope that the results of my study will be as beneficial to you this morning as they have been to me this past week. And so this morning we're going to study Psalm 100. Psalm 100. So please go ahead and turn there if you have not done so already. And as you're turning there, I'd like to introduce this Psalm to you and kind of give you a context for Psalm 100. Psalm 100 is the last of what is known as the Theocratic Psalms or the Kingly Psalms, the core of them being Psalm 95 through 100. We read Psalm 95 at the beginning of our service for our scripture reading. And if you were to read through these collection of Psalms, you would notice the common theme that the Lord is viewed as the king of Israel, the king of Israel. He's described as their king, and there's a lot of kingly language in these psalms. And many of the Jewish commentators look at Psalm 100 as kind of being the climax of this collection of psalm. And many of them have incorporated this into their regular services leading up to the Sabbath. Maybe they recite them. Different traditions have evolved around this psalm. But it's a popular psalm. As you heard this morning, it's a psalm. That has been put to song in a variety of ways. We sang one of them first this morning. We're going to sing another one as we leave today. One that the tune is familiar. It's called the Old Hundredth. It is the tune, but you'll know it as the doxology. So we're going to sing that as we leave here together. But it's a popular psalm. It's also a psalm for thanksgiving. If you look in your Bible, that's probably what your inscription, how it reads, a psalm for thanksgiving, and is the only psalm out of 150 psalms that bear this inscription. And so I thought, well, what could be more fitting for Thanksgiving week than a psalm for thanksgiving? I'm not sure how we're going to top that next year. I guess we'll figure that out next year. But it's the only psalm that is titled A Psalm for Thanksgiving. Literally, a poem set to notes. It's designed to be sung, and it was for Thanksgiving, for literally the thank offering, the thank offering. Now, I know most of you are well acquainted with the book of Leviticus. You probably even were in there this morning for your quiet time.

4:14But for the rest of us that don't get into Leviticus very much, there are five major offerings that are listed there. Five major offerings. There's the burnt offering, there's the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering. Maybe some of the offerings. Some of that is familiar to you. And the peace offering in particular had three kinds of peace offerings. There was the peace offering that was attached to making a vow. So if you were going to make a vow to the Lord, you would bring a peace offering with it. There was the free will peace offering, and that was just free will, right? As you felt like it, you could bring an offering to the Lord. And then there was the thank offering. Again, it was a type of peace offering. And these peace offerings, this thank offering, was completely voluntary, right? So it was out of just the free will or the voluntary nature of someone's heart. And it was to represent the peace that the worshiper had with God, right? The peace that we have with God. And it was a reminder of God's covenant and the fellowship that we have. And this particular thank offering, I'll just kind of spare you some of the details, but essentially the worshiper would come and they would bring an animal from their flock, and they would sacrifice that animal. And part of it would go on the altar as a burnt offering to remind them of the atonement for their sin. Another part would go to the priest, and then the third part would be held back for the one bringing the offering. And it was designed for a fellowship meal. Kind of sounds familiar to our thanksgiving. But a fellowship meal that you could share, and you would bring your friends and your family with you as you gave this thank offering. And it was to be a picture of the fellowship that we have with God. And it was a time of celebration. It was a joyful offering and a voluntary one. And so that is a little bit of the background of Psalm 100. It is a psalm for the thank offering. And so this morning, let me just begin by reading the text before us, and then we will study it together. Psalm 100, a psalm for thanksgiving. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God. It is He that made us, not we ourselves. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise, and give thanks to Him. Bless His name. For the Lord is good, His loving kindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness is to all generations. Well, as we begin our study of Psalm 100, I want to point out a few general observations. First, notice that there are seven commands in this Psalm. Perhaps you spotted them as we just read it together. They're in verses 1 through 4. Let me highlight them for you in case you missed them. They are shouts. Joyfully, serve, come, know, enter, give thanks, and bless. So, seven commands, seven expressions of giving thanks. And then, second, notice that there is only one main object of these commands, one main object, and that is the Lord. We are to shout to the Lord, we are to serve the Lord, we are to know the Lord, to come before him, enter his gates, enter his courts, right? Give thanks to him, bless his name. So, the Lord alone is the object of these commands. And then, thirdly, notice to whom the commands are given. Do you see that in verse 1? It addresses all the earth. All the earth. Now, I would say the primary audience of this particular psalm is the people of Israel, right, as they're coming to the temple to give their thank offering. But I do think that all the earth can certainly apply or gives application to anyone coming to give thanks to the Lord. It's a psalm for all of God's people by application. And so, if I were to summarize the psalm for you this morning in one sentence, it would be this: I am glad and I am thankful because he is good and he is faithful. I'll say it again: I am glad and I am thankful because he is good. And he is faithful. That pretty much summarizes the Psalm this morning. And so our main outline is quite simple. There's only two points. Well, there's two main points. I've got a lot of sub points. But the first one is verses 1 through 4. And it struck us how to give thanks. It shows us how we should give thanks. And then, verse 5, it tells us why. It tells us why we should give thanks. So as we study Psalm 100 together, it's my prayer that we would learn these truths about giving thanks so that we would be a people that excels in giving thanks. That we would be a people that excels in giving thanks. So let's begin by looking at how. How do we do that? How should we give thanks?

9:49Well, we begin in verse 1. It says, shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. The first expression of thanks can be seen in this command, to shout joyfully. Now, this command really sets the tone, I think, for the entire Psalm. And so it's important for us to really gain an understanding of what's in view here. The Hebrew word to shout can be viewed or used in a variety of contexts. One, it can literally mean to give a blast. So you may think of like blowing a trumpet, a trumpet sound. Or it can mean to cry out, like in a battle cry, maybe battle of. Jericho comes to mind, right? What did they do when they were marching around Jericho? Joshua gave them to command to march around seven times and then do what? To shout, right? To shout. And of course, when the trumpets blew and the people shouted, all the walls came tumbling down, as we sing in our kids' program, right? But that's the same word, not exactly what the psalmist is referring to here. I don't think the psalmist is commanding us to come into church this morning with a battle cry, although that would be kind of fun to try, I think, sometimes to come in here with a battle cry. But that is not what he's talking about. It can also be used as a greeting of a king, a royal greeting, like in 1 Samuel 10, 24, where Saul is being presented to the people of Israel for the first time. And it says in 1 Samuel 10, 24, that all the people shouted and said, Long live the king, long live the king.

11:36And so it's a greeting. It can be a greeting. And I think that gets closer to what is being talked about here when it says to shout joyfully to the Lord. But there's another example, maybe one that is a clearer picture of what is in view here, and that's in Ezra chapter 3. And so if you want to, you can hold your finger there in Psalm 100 and go to Ezra. Chapter 3. Now, if you were here a while back, Jeff was actually teaching through the book of Ezra on Sunday evenings. And so you may remember some of the context of this, but I will remind you. Israel had been in Babylonian captivity for the last 70 years. And Ezra is writing as they are coming back into Jerusalem. So the people of God, the people of Israel, were coming back from captivity into Jerusalem. Their land had been taken from them, destroyed. The temple was no longer existing. And one of the first tasks that were on their list was to come back and rebuild the temple. Maybe you remember that, to rebuild the temple and to re-establish a place to, a formal place to worship the Lord. And so this is what's taking place in Ezra 3. And really, the first nine verses, we see Israel gathered together as one group. They have rebuilt the altar, and they started offering burnt offerings and free will offerings and all these things there. And then they had actually commissioned the workers to go and begin laying the foundation of the temple. And this is where we'll pick up here in chapter 3, verse 10. And it says, Now, when the book is, Builders had laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord. The priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the son of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord according to the directions of King David of Israel. So, again, you have this picture of the people of God gathering together. They're prepared for worship. And then it says, They sang, praising, and giving thanks to the Lord, saying, For he is good, and his loving kindness is upon Israel forever. Similar to what we read in our Psalm 100. And then it goes on to say, 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. And a few verses later, it goes on to say that the shout was so loud that people could hear it from a long ways off. So this was quite a scene. Again, you have the people of God gathered together. They're prepared with their attire. They've got the cymbals, the trumpets, and they begin singing and praising the Lord, and they raise their voice to God in joyful thankfulness, and they shout for joy. And it became a way for them to publicly acknowledge, we're back in the land, we're rebuilding the temple, we're establishing that place to come and meet the Lord, and we're acknowledging that Yahweh is. Our king. Yahweh is our king. And so you kind of start, I think that gives us a good picture. So when the psalmist back in 100, you can turn back there, he says, shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. That's the idea. That we need to raise our voices to God as an expression of our joy and as a public acknowledgement that God is our king. That God is our king. If we're going to give thanks to the Lord, we have to start there. We must begin with acknowledging God as our king. And so I wonder for you here this morning, have you done that? Have you come to church to worship and give thanks without acknowledging him as your king? Well, I hope that is not the case for you. I hope that you have acknowledged him as your king. So that is the first command. Shout joyfully to the Lord. Acknowledge him as your king. Number two, number two, serve the Lord with gladness. Serve the Lord with gladness. That is the second expression that we find here in our text of giving thanks to the Lord. To serve with gladness. Now, this word translated here, serve, it literally means to labor or to do work. It can also mean to serve one another.

16:30By working. Perhaps your translation translates it as worship. Some of the translations do that. And that would be accurate. Worship to worship the Lord by serving Him. That's the idea here. Now keep in mind, the psalmist is writing to an Old Testament saint, right? To an Old Testament worshipper, someone coming to the temple. And so temple worship is really the picture here. And for Israel, serving the Lord and worshiping the Lord were very much connected to each other. They were essentially one and the same thing. To worship the Lord in the temple was an act of service to the Lord. And it was a labor of love.

17:18There was a significant amount of work to worship the Lord or to come and worship at the temple if you were going to worship the Lord properly, anyways. And the command here is that it would be done with gladness. So you work, you serve, you worship the Lord with a glad heart, with a glad heart. And I really think this last phrase with gladness brings out the emphasis of the command here in Psalm 100. If you're going to give thanks to the Lord by serving Him, you can't come grumbling and complaining.

17:56That doesn't work. It is the opposite of gladness. And it is also not it's not an acceptable form of worship. We are to serve with gladness. Now, imagine for a moment that you are an Israelite coming to the temple to worship. And as you entered the gates of the temple, you kind of checked the gladness at the door, right? You came, you showed up without much gladness in your heart. And maybe you had traveled a long way, right? You're tired. And so you get to the temple, and now you're coming to give this thank offering. You finally got there, and now you have to go through all these rules and these regulations, right? All these steps of cleansing and sacrificing. And you've got to slaughter the animal and give a part here and a part there and do all of these things. And you finally get to the end of it, and you're kind of just worn out. And you've had enough. And so you're just trying to check the boxes to get through the thank offering. And I think it can easily become you could see how it could easily become a chore for an Old Testament worshipper coming to offer all of these different kinds of offerings. Now, obviously, we don't have to do all of that today as a New Testament believer, but I do think that we can relate. I think we can relate because serving the Lord with gladness sometimes can be A chore. It can be a chore. It can be a challenge for us to have a glad heart when we're serving the Lord.

19:40I think we can be so we can become so consumed with all of the things that need to be done, all the ways to serve, that the work no longer becomes a joyful work. And at some point along the way, we stop serving with gladness and we start grumbling with bitterness. And instead of serving the Lord and having the Lord as our focus, we begin trying to serve others or please others or ourselves. And so perhaps that's you this morning. Perhaps in all your serving, you are grumbling and you are complaining. And that is the opposite of what is commanded here, to serve the Lord with gladness. And friends, that is the fastest way to stifle the gladness in your heart. When you begin taking your focus off of worshiping the Lord and you start looking at all the things that you have to do or all the things that other people aren't doing, that is the quickest way to stifle gladness in your heart. And it's a dangerous place to be. And so I would encourage you to look within your own hearts this morning. Is there gladness? Now, some, I think, here this morning, The opposite is true. They're not struggling with serving with gladness. They are struggling with serving at all. And the reason that they lack gladness is because they aren't serving the Lord at all. Look, God made you, and He made me to worship Him through serving Him. That's how He has designed it, that we would find our ultimate satisfaction in God alone, and we do that by serving Him and worshiping Him. And so, when you're not serving Him and when you're not delighting in Him, enter in the temptation to grumble and complain. And I think there are many in modern church circles today where their understanding of worship is really anything but serving.

21:53Rather, it has become an event that you attend so that people can serve you. And the purpose of coming is no longer delighting in the Lord, but rather delighting in yourself. And again, when this happens, it is an avenue for grumbling rather than gladness. And so, regardless of where you find yourself this morning, the exhortation is the same. The command is the same: serve the Lord, worship the Lord, and do so with a glad heart. Serve him with gladness. Does that characterize your worship this morning? Morning. Is your heart glad to be here? I hope so. Well, there's a third way. There's a third expression in our text where we can give thanks to the Lord, and it can be seen in the second part of verse 2. Look back at the text. It says, Serve the Lord with gladness, and then come before Him with joyful singing. Joyful singing. Now, let me point out a couple things here. First of all, when the command is to come, right? That is the command that we see here, to come. And when we're talking about commands, I think the tone of the command is very important. I think we've all experienced this to some degree, and perhaps the best way I can illustrate this is with a personal example from our home. You see, dogs, any dog people out there? We've got a lot of dog people. Yeah.

23:25Dogs are excellent at deciphering commands just by the tone in your voice. I don't know if you know this. But we have a dog, and his name is Bailey. And Bailey is a cute little fluffy miniature golden doodle, his family pet, right? And we all love him. Except, you know, my wife and Bailey have a very special relationship. We'll just say that. They have an understanding. And that understanding is if Bailey is going to live at our house, he's going to have to. Listen. And in particular, he's going to have to listen to my wife.

24:05And so, if there's one person in our house that our dog listens to, it is my wife. Everybody else, it's hit or miss. But my wife, he obeys every command she gives. And one of the commands that he's familiar with, most familiar with, is come. And there will be times where I'm sitting in the other room and I hear Bailey chomping and chewing up Legos. You know, if he had gotten into our kids' Legos, and I hear from the other room my wife say, Bailey, get over here. You come. You know, as certain voices she knows how. And oh boy, when Bailey hears my wife say those words, he knows that he's messed up. He knows from the tone in her voice, this is not going to be good. And so he comes, he obeys, but his tail's between his legs. He's kind of not quite sure he wants to come all the way to her. He kind of keeps his distance. But then there are other times, and these are maybe not as often, but there are these other times where she gives the same command, right, but with a slightly different tone.

25:24And so this time she holds her hand out, and it's the craziest thing. She'll just hold her hand out like this, and you say, Bailey, come here. Come here, Bailey. And when he detects the slightest, the slightest amount of kindness in her voice, it evokes a completely different response. I mean, it's like he can barely contain himself. Oh, she called my name. She wants me to come. And his tail is not between his legs anymore. He is wagging his whole body. He barely can contain his excitement. And he just comes running through the house, full blast, but he doesn't jump. He does not jump on her. He'll jump on me all day long, but he will not jump on her. He comes, and she just holds her hand out like this, and he does a 180, and he sits just like that, and he looks up, and he's waiting for her to just pet his head. And it is the funniest thing. I wish I had it on video. I would have played it.

26:24So not the perfect analogy, right? But I do think you can get the picture when it says, come before the Lord with joyful singing. Bailey came joyfully yet respectfully. And I think the same should be true for us. God is calling us to come before him. To come before him. It is an invitation to approach the Lord. It is not a get over here and we should be scared. That's not what is being communicated here. It's saying, come near. Come near. Near, and we are to come joyfully and respectfully.

27:06You know, I don't want to see anybody squirming in their seats as they come into church. That might be kind of awkward, right? But you can be joyful, you can be excited, yet respectful. And so we are commanded to come before Him. And that should invoke in us an immense amount of joy. The God of the universe has invited us to come in. The New Testament echoes these words. Jesus says, Come to me, right? Come to me.

27:37He opens the door and desires to be with his people. And he desires for his people to be with him. And then notice that he wants us to come before him joyfully. And one of the primary ways I think that we can express our joy to the Lord is through singing. Through singing. Do you see that? Come before him with joyful singing. You want to know why we sing so much here at Emmanuel? We have the worship service, we got singing morning and evening, we got praise GM, we got PGM, we got all these other places where we sing. It's because it's biblical to sing. God wants us to sing, He's commanded us to sing, and it's a way that we can express our joy. Now, I have the great privilege. Of teaching the Connect class. We just finished up one this morning during the 9 o'clock hour. And it's a class where I get to meet with guests and people that are new to Emmanuel and get to meet many new people. And one of the things that I love about the Connect class is I get to hear what people love about coming to Emmanuel. And over the years, I've heard a lot of different things, but there are kind of some three things that top the list. One of them is people love that the preaching is biblical. I love that. The other is that the fellowship is genuine. People, we have plenty of opportunity here to fellowship with one another. There's a wonderful community here. But number three, they love the singing here at Emmanuel. And that one surprised me, not that they would say that, but what they're referring to, they're not referring necessarily to the musical ability of our praise team, although we have been blessed, very blessed, with so many musicians here, and Pat has been so gracious to open the stage to allow people to use their gifts in that way. But that's not specifically what people are referring to when they comment on the singing.

29:54When they say that they love the singing, they're talking about all of you. When we come into the present, Of God, and when we come to worship the God of the universe here in this worship center, they love to hear the people singing. And it's a refreshing thing to hear the people of God expressing their joy for the God whom they're singing to. And that is, if you visit many churches, that's lost in many churches. And here at Emmanuel, we love to sing. We love to express our thanks by giving, by singing. And so if you this morning are going to give thanks to the Lord, you must come before him, and you must come before him with joyful singing. And God's people have always been, and I believe we always will be, a singing people. Even in heaven, we're going to be singing for joy. We see that in Revelation, the angels singing before God.

30:57So come before him with joyful singing. Number four, there's a fourth expression of giving thanks, and that is to know, to know. It says, know that the Lord Himself is God. It is He who made us, not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. So again, the fourth expression is to know. Now, don't be confused. This is not a command that everybody has to go to seminary and study the Bible, although we do have a seminary right here at Emmanuel. Baptist Church, Shepherd's Theological Seminary. I'll give you a plug for that. It is a wonderful way to grow in your knowledge of the Bible and your knowledge of God.

31:42But that is not the command here. It's not a command to go to seminary and to study more about God. Rather, the idea communicated here is to make him known, right? To know him and to make him known, to declare or to confess the truth about God as an expression of thanks. So it is a declaration of truth. And that's exactly what the psalmist does here. And he gives us three specific declarations that we can spot here in the text. Number one, he declares that the Lord is God. That the Lord is God.

32:22Know that the Lord Himself is God. He's saying, Let it be known to all the earth that there is only one God. There is only one true God, and His name is Yahweh. That's the name that He uses here. It should be all caps, I think, in your text. But it's Yahweh, the God of Israel. He alone is God. There is no one like Him. And He alone is worthy of our praise and our worship and our thanksgiving. You see, He's making that declaration. He's confessing that vocally. And for Israel, This would, of course, have been a very familiar declaration.

33:04You may know Deuteronomy 6:4. I think our kids in Truth and Grace have that one memorized. It says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And that declaration became an integral part in their worship. So, in our giving thanks, we make known the truth that the Lord is God and there is no other. Second, he declares that the Lord is great. The Lord is great. It is he who made us and not we ourselves. This speaks of God's greatness, and it speaks of his sovereign power. Of course, in the broadest sense, these phrases can remind us of the great act of creation, right? That he created us, and that certainly would be true. That God is the creator God. All things were created by him and through him and for him. All things came into existence because of him. And certainly that is the testimony of all of the scriptures. But in a more specific sense, I think the psalmist is reminding here the people of Israel that they were once not a people, right? They were once not a nation, but that it was God alone who made them into a mighty nation, not the other way around.

34:27And so it wasn't by Israel's strength, it wasn't by the Wisdom, but it was by God's great power and his sovereign choice that they became a people. And we see that all throughout the Old Testament, right? Beginning Genesis 12, the covenant to Abraham, the promise that God made to make them into a nation. And then the scriptures just unfold that narrative of making Israel into a nation. Well, in a similar way, I think this truth is applicable to us. Although we are not the people of Israel, I don't think most of us probably are not from Israel. We used to have someone that was, but we are, most of us are not, but we have been chosen by God, have we not? It is He who made us physically. I think we're all here. We'd all agree, hopefully, that it is God who created us, but it is also God who sovereignly chose us in Christ for salvation, and he placed us here as a body of believers. It is he who redeemed us, it's he who saved us, not anything that we had done. So again, it's a similar way. We can declare this truth, just like the psalmist is saying. We can declare that not only the Lord is God, but we can declare that he is great. He is great. And then, thirdly, we can declare that the Lord is good.

35:55It says that we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. And again, This reminds us that God cares for his people like a shepherd would. And this was certainly true of Israel. Again, the Old Testament testifies of this. Example after example of God's care for his people, his goodness towards Israel, how he, again, he chose them, he made them a people, he cared for them, he fed them, he clothed them, he protected them, he blessed them with an abundance, and he was constantly gracious to them.

36:32He's slow to anger, abounding in mercy. The Lord is good. The Lord is good. And we can declare that. That is part of what the psalmist is saying here. To know is to declare that the Lord is God, that the Lord is great, and that the Lord is good. The Lord is good. So if you're going to give thanks this morning, again, you must commit to making Him known and declaring these truths about God. Do you do that? Do you declare that about God? Is that true of you?

37:06Number five. Number five, there's a fifth expression of thanks in our text, and it's somewhat a restatement of number three. And it says this: Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. So it's slightly a restatement, but I think there is a nuance here that I want to pick up on. You see, in verse 2, The command was to come before him with joyful singing and to come near, right, to come near to the Lord. Here in verse 4, it seems to almost take it a step further as the psalmist beckons us to not just come near, but to enter in, to go inside. The command is to enter his gates, to enter his courts. So don't just come near. Don't just hang out on the outside. Go inside. Go enter into the place where you meet with God. And of course, the imagery used here is that of the temple and would have been very familiar to the worshipper coming to the temple. And so perhaps you can imagine someone standing out by the gate, right? And a little bit of history or a review of the temple. You have the temple and you have the gates, right? You have the outer gates and you come through the gates and then there is the courts. And then inside the courts you have the holy place. And then inside there you have the Holy of Holies where God was dwelling. And so perhaps you can imagine the psalmist here standing outside the gates and he is calling out to the people, enter in, come through the gates and don't stop there. Go in, go into the gates, go into the courts and worship the Lord.

39:00And so I think we can kind of get that picture in our mind. But the command doesn't stop there. Not only must we enter into his courts, enter into his gates, but we must enter with the right attitude. And again, this is similar to what we've already discussed in the third command. But it says, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Friends, that is what the Lord ultimately desires from us. He wants our praise. He wants our thanksgiving. This is what pleases him.

39:39It's not the goats and the sheep and the sacrifices, right? It is the thanksgiving. It is our praise. It is a worshipful heart that he desires. And the good news for us is that the gates are open. The gates are open for worship. The courts are open to come. And we have direct access to God, the Father, to come and to worship Him by the blood of Christ. He was the perfect sacrifice, and he threw those doors open. Listen to what it says in Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, 19 says, Therefore, brothers, since we have the confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us. us through the veil, that is his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

40:52We can enter. We can enter his presence. We can enter boldly by the blood of Jesus Christ, but we should not enter empty-handed. We must offer not sacrifices of animals, but sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise. Listen, a few verses later in Hebrews 13, it says, Through him, then, through Jesus, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. For with such sacrifices, God is pleased. God is pleased when we bring him thanks, when we bring hearts that desire to thank him and hearts that desire to praise him. And so this morning, keeping with our outline, if you want to give thanks to the Lord, you must do so by entering his presence with the right attitude. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

41:55Well, there are two commands left. I'm going to treat them together because they are very Similar in nature, and they are also the logical conclusion of all that we've been talking about. So, everything we've talked about so far leads up to this. And again, so far we've talked about acknowledging the King, right? Acknowledging Him as our King, shouting to the Lord, serving the Lord with gladness, coming near to Him, making Him known, and entering His presence. And so, now that we've entered in, what is left to do but to actually give thanks? The command to give thanks, give thanks to Him, bless His name.

42:36Or another way to say that is give thanks to Him, praise His name, praise Him for who He is. In the book of Psalms alone, these two commands can be counted to total up to about 75 times just in the book of Psalms. And when you add in all the other similar commands throughout Scripture, I don't know how many that is, but it's a lot. We are commanded to give thanks to the Lord. And I'll say it's one thing to say that you're thankful. This has probably been the most convicting thing for me this week as I studied this. It's one thing to say that you're thankful. That's easy. We say thank you all the time. People give us stuff, thank you, appreciate that. We say thank you. We even pre-program it for those of us who email a lot. We even type it in our signature block because we're lazy. We don't have to type it every time.

43:32We say thank you a lot, but that doesn't actually make us a thankful person. Again, it's easy to say thanks. It's quite another thing to actually give thanks. And this command to give thanks and to praise His name takes us from the realm of general thankfulness to a realm of being specific. We need to be specific. If we're going to be thankful and we're going to actually obey this command to give thanks, you have to be specific, as I think Russell commented on this morning in the opening of the service.

44:14We need to be specific in our thanksgiving. And so I asked you this morning: are you specific? Do you give thanks? Do you list out all the ways that he has blessed you and cared for you and protected you and met your needs and saved you from your own self and from sin and from God's wrath? When's the last time that you articulated that to the Lord? When's the last time that you blessed his name in specifics, right? Where you said, God, I praise your name because you're good, because you're loving, because you've shown me mercy, because you're patient with me, because you're mercy. You're kind, because you're generous and benevolent, because you offer peace for my soul. You're righteous. Everything you do is righteous. You are just. You're holy. There's no one like you. When's the last time that you've praised the Lord like that?

45:18I would suggest to you that if we stop short of doing that, we have not actually given appropriate thanks to the Lord. We've just been giving the appearance of doing so. And, friends, I don't know about you, but that convicts me. That's a tough one, right? When we evaluate how we give thanks. Let this be you. Be specific. Give thanks. Be a thankful person. And so if we're going to give thanks to the Lord, again, you must be specific. And Russell commented on it this morning. In your bulletins, there are some thank you cards. I put these there. This is something that our family has done the last few years. Around Thanksgiving is a great time to do it because you can do it anytime. And if you didn't get one in your bulletin, there should be a stack of them out in the foyer. But our family has kind of made it a tradition to go around and be specific and specifically write out all the ways that we are thankful to the Lord. And take it, borrow it, use it. I encourage you to do that. Maybe make that your own. But it has been much of a blessing to our family to be able to do that. And I meant to grab a stack of them and share some of them with you. But it's encouraging to go back over the years and look at some of the things that we were thankful for year over year and see how our thankfulness has grown, maybe from the trivial to the more serious things as we grow in our thankfulness. But hopefully that is helpful to you. Well, I'm running out of time, so let me transition to the last verse and the second part of our outline, and that is giving reasons why. Why should we give thanks? We looked at how to give thanks. We looked at all those seven commands. Now, why? Why should we do that? What stirs a person to be able to give such thanksgiving as we just outlined here in our text? Well, I will tell you, there's three things listed here, but let me summarize it in saying that is because the Lord is good. It's because the Lord is so, so very good.

47:53God's goodness is an essential part of God's character. If God were not good, we would. Really, we have no reason to give thanks. Think about that. If God were not good, if that was not part of his character, we would have nothing to thank him for. If we were to give thanks and be specific about all the things that he has done and all the things that he is, but he wasn't good, we would have nothing to give him thanks for. And so, all of his attributes and all of his actions flow out of a characteristic of the goodness of God. We know that there is no one good but God alone. Luke 18:19 says that. The scriptures are clear on this. We would not know what something that is good was if God did not reveal it to us through his character. And so, God, when we say that the Lord is good, we're saying that he is the standard of goodness. He defines what that is for us. And he defines it because everything that he does is good. Everything.

49:03Starting from creation, in Genesis, in the creation narrative, what does it say? He says that in verse 31 of chapter 1, God saw that all that he had made, and behold, it was what? It was very good, very good. And so he is good, everything he does is good, and he is the source of everything that is good. Things that We experience that are good come from only one place, and that is from the Father. In James chapter 1, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. So the Lord is good. That is reason number one that we can give thanks to the Lord. He is good. But he highlights two other reasons, and let me just touch on them very quickly. God is good, and God is loving. God is loving. That's the second reason. It says His loving kindness is everlasting.

50:10Let that sink in for a moment. His loving kindness is everlasting. The word loving kindness refers to God's loyal love, his unfailing love, and specifically as it relates to his people. Did you know that God's love never runs out? Did you know that? That it's everlasting. It is continuous, indefinite, unending. It is eternal. 1 Corinthians 13, it bears all things, it believes all things, it hopes all things, it endures all things, it never fails. God's love never fails. It's everlasting. And listen to Ephesians 2. It says, but God, but God, being real. Rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. And he raised us up with him and he seated us with him in the heavenly places so that in the ages to come, listen to this, that so in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Isn't that so great? The Lord is good, and the Lord is loving, and he is loving even when we were unlovable. We got to experience the goodness of God, and we can experience his everlasting love through Christ here this morning. You can. We all can. And that's just, that should stir your heart to give thanks to the Lord. And then lastly, it says, His faithfulness is to all generations. So God is good. He is loving. And lastly, he is faithful. He is faithful to all generations. Do you know what that means? When it says his faithfulness is to all generations, it means he's going to keep his word. God always keeps his word. He is faithful. He never breaks his promise. And for those who are in Christ, he has promised to save us, right? He is coming. And he is coming for us. And he has promised to take us to us. us to the place that he has prepared. And that is what we long for. That is what we are waiting for. And we are relying on the fact that God is faithful to bring us to that place where we can thank him and we can praise him for all eternity.

52:48And so he's going to bring this about. And in conclusion, I just want to read these words from Revelation chapter 22. You can turn there if you'd like. Revelation chapter 22 says this. This is at the end of the age. And John writes, saying that the angel had showed him a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit in every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

53:36And there will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will serve him. And they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night, and they will not have need of the light of a lamp, nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them, and they will reign forever. And ever. And he said these words to me. These words are faithful, and they are true.

54:09Well, I am thankful because he is faithful. I'm thankful because he's faithful. Are you? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks this morning. We give you thanks. We worship your name. We thank you for all that you have done for us, how you've redeemed us, you've cared for us. We thank you for the Word of God that instructs us. And God, we praise your name this morning. I pray that you make us, give us hearts of thanksgiving this week as we go out from here and as we celebrate Thanksgiving. Fill our hearts with gladness. Fill our hearts with joy as we think upon your faithfulness and your goodness and your loving kindness.

54:58May these consume our thoughts this week in Jesus' name.