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Thanksgiving – November 27, 2013
Rev. Jeremy Cares
Psalm 100
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.
The following was in a newspaper the day of Thanksgiving.
“Seven things to be thankful for:
 for automatic dishwashers. They make it possible to get out of the kitchen before
the family comes in for their after-dinner snacks.
 for husbands who attack small repair jobs around the house. They usually make
them big enough to call in professionals.
 for the bathtub – the one place the family allows Mom some time to herself.
 for children who put away their things and clean up after themselves. They’re
such a joy you hate to see them go home to their own parents.
 for gardening. It’s a relief to deal with dirt outside the house for a change.
 for teenagers. They give parents an opportunity to learn a second language.
 for smoke alarms. They let you know when the turkey’s done.”
It’s true that we might be thankful for these things as well, but we all have other reasons
to be thankful this Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is a time where we gather together as a Christian family to count our
blessings, such as the list from the newspaper article, but many other blessings as well.
Today we are gathered together to give thanks to God who has provided us with every
blessing that we have ever received. Psalm 100 guides us this Thanksgiving to “Enter
His Gates with Thanksgiving” and we are to do this by 1. Joyfully thanking God in
worship, and 2. Joyfully thanking God because of his goodness.
1. Joyfully thanking God in worship
The Psalmist makes it absolutely clear to who our thanks should be directed. Shout for
joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before
HIM with joyful songs…Enter HIS gates with thanksgiving and HIS courts with
praise; give thanks to HIM and praise HIS name.
It is God, our Lord and King, that we ought to thank and praise at all times. He has
provided everything in our life and has done it all for our good.
Have you always given thanks where thanks is due? A little girl went to a sleepover at
her best friend’s house. When she returned home her mother asked her if she thanked her
friend’s mom for the sleepover. The girl said, “I was going to, but another one of my
friends before me said, ‘Thank you,’ and the mom said not to mention it. So I didn’t.”
Ironically the girl thought she was doing what was right, but she broke a simple social
rule that says to always thank your host. Now this was something as small as a
sleepover, but what about all the times God has been your host and blessed you? There
are so many things that we are to be thankful for to God, but so easily forget to say thank
you.
And the best place to give thanks to God is in worship. Worship comes in two forms,
personal/private worship and corporate worship. Both of which are very important. But
with both of these forms of worship we have no excuse, but to worship God at all times
and give him thanks because we have access to worship him every second of every day.
So we enter God’s gates with thanksgiving today as we celebrate the national holiday of
Thanksgiving. Here we are gathered together in corporate worship to thank God. As we
are here the Psalmist encourages us to “shout for joy,” to “come before him with gladness
and joyful songs,” to “enter his courts with praise,” and to “give thanks and praise his
name.” We are to be filled with an enthusiastic and overflowing joy as we come before
our God in thanksgiving.
In the Hebrew, joy or rejoicing is an inward religious emotion that simply has to express
itself as praise to and for God! When God’s people were filled with joy they could not
help but come before God with clapping, singing, shouting and dancing. Joy, all joy,
expresses itself in praise!
Our worship life, no matter when it is private or corporate, is to be a time of joyful
thanks. This means that when we come together in worship it is a time to join in joyful
praise as one family in the presence of God.
2. Joyfully thanking God because of his goodness.
As much as this Psalm stresses worshiping God in joy, it emphasizes even more the
motivation of our joyful thanks, God’s goodness. God’s goodness extends much further
than we could ever imagine, but he is always looking over us. So what does it really
mean when we speak of God’s goodness?
What does good really mean today? “Good,” is such a watered down term today that
when we speak of God’s goodness I don’t think we really are comprehended how good
God truly is. For example how often when asked, “How are you doing?”, do you respond
with, “Good.”? Or many times someone says, “Have a good day.” What really is in
those statements and responses? They are pretty empty and usually seem to be just
brushed off as if they weren’t even in a conversation.
Do we today water down what it really means when we talk about God’s goodness? For
God’s goodness is much higher than any good we can think of on earth. God’s goodness
is perfection. God’s goodness made us and made us his own. God’s goodness endures
forever. God’s goodness is his faithful love that he grants through all generations.
God is so good. God wants to share himself, his Son and his life, his love with others
including you. God shared his goodness, his perfection, with all creation when he created
all things. And “God saw all that he had made and it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).
God is so good that he satisfies us with what we need. Think about how you got to where
you are today. There may have been many times that you didn’t know how you were
going to make it through a certain situation, but you’re still here today aren’t you? God
provided you with what he knew you needed to make it through. It may not have
fulfilled what you thought that you needed, but it did fulfill what you truly did need. God
satisfying your needs is almost like a child who tries to fill one glass with an entire can of
pop. They just keep pouring even though there seems to be no room left. God is that
way when it comes to him satisfying your needs. He will not stop satisfying your true
needs because he is your Father and cares so deeply for you.
God is so good that he satisfied your greatest need. Psalm 42 addresses this need, “As
the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul
thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God” (Psalm
42:1,2)? After running as prey from their attackers deer need a place of respite and
refreshment. So also do we as prey to our sin, death, and our enemy the devil we badly
need that place of respite and refreshment to be in God’s presence. God has satisfied this
need through his Son, Jesus Christ. This is God’s goodness as he faithfully committed to
his promise to crush the devil’s head. He took sin head on as he avoided every
temptation and lived perfectly so that his death would satisfy the Father’s justice. But on
the other hand his perfect life would satisfy God’s mercy as he granted it to us and now
views us as his holy saints. God is extremely good. This Thanksgiving we rejoice in the
God who has shared his goodness with us by satisfying our need for himself in and
through Jesus Christ.
Sure Thanksgiving is a national holiday and its traditions may not all be Bible based. We
may surround ourselves around a bird stuffed with bread and seasoning, enjoy the
potatoes and cranberries, have a roll or two and some yams, and indulge in a slice of
pumpkin, pecan, cherry, and maybe also apple pie. Thanksgiving to us Christians is so
much more than the food and afternoon of football. Thanksgiving is about entering
God’s gates with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is about joyfully thanking God in worship.
Thanksgiving is about us gathering together to worship our God with all thanks and
praise because of his goodness.
Our God is good. He is so good. Therefore, says the Psalmist, shout for joy to the Lord,
all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Our
God is good. He is so good. Therefore, says the Psalmist, enter his gates with
thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
The Lord is good. He is so good. Only one response is possible: we must now give Him
our joyful thanks.