SERVICE VIDEO (link)TEXT: Psalm 100; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day, and I suspect that sometime during the week each of us will give some thought to what we are thankful for.  Some people have family traditions of sharing these thanksgivings around the dinner table; some people spend a little extra time offering God prayers of thanks; still others have an increased awareness of God’s many blessings in our lives. To prepare us for this week and as a reminder that we should be thankful all year long, I chose Psalm 100 as our sermon text.  It is known as a Psalm of Thanksgiving.  It is more than that, it is a beautiful piece of poetry that invites the reader and the hearer to know God, respond to God’s goodness, and worship God with a thankful heart.

It is made up of a series of seven imperatives, or challenges.  And they are arranged kind of like a bull’s-eye target.  At the center of the Psalm is the invitation in verse 3 to KNOW God.  Surrounding that are the calls or invitations to COME into God’s presence in worship.  One more “ring” out are the challenges to SERVE and GIVE thankful offering.  And finally, we find the commands to SHOUT publicly and joyfully and to BLESS the name of God.  This arrangement helped people to memorize the Psalm and to picture God’s invitation, challenges, and commandments for his people.

We’ll look at those same invitations, challenges, and commandments today as God speaks them to us through his Word.

Knowing God (v.3)

We aren’t used to starting at the middle of something to find out the main point, but poetry is different.  The layout makes a difference.  And Psalm 100 invites us into its “heart” to invite us to know God in a personal way.  None of the other challenging words of Psalm 100 make much sense unless we know the Lord God.

And so, in verse 3, we are not only invited to KNOW God; we are also told who God is.  He is the one who has made us.  God is our creator.  And we are His people – we belong to him and respond to the covenant-making God of promise and hope.  And we are the sheep of His pasture – he is our Good Shepherd, caring for us, tending us, and defending us.

That is the central question for each of us.  We can come to church, sing and pray, serve and give, and all the rest; but if we do not know the God who has made us, who leads us, and who shepherds us, we’ve missed it the meaning behind it all.

Do you know God?  It is THE central question to ask – and if so, the central reason to be thankful.

Come and Enter (v.2b, 4a)

The Good News in the Bible is that God doesn’t leave us on our own to find and know Him.  Rather, He invites us to come to Him and meet Him face to face.  Look at the end of verse 2 and the beginning of verse 4 – one “ring” out from the center bull’s eye of knowing God.  The same word is translated two ways: COME and ENTER.  God bids us to come before Him – literally, before His face, not in fear or terror, but with joyful singing.  And God invites us to enter God’s gates and courts – His very presence – with thanksgiving and praise.

It’s that same message Jesus spoke to his disciples and so many he met: “Come and see; come and know; come and believe.”  And to do so leads us into God’s presence with joy, thanks, and praise.

Responding through Serving and Offering to God (v.2a, 4b)

It is natural then, if God has invited us into His presence so that we may know Him for who He is, that we would want to respond to God’s goodness in some way.  The next “ring” of the bull’s-eye is that of responding to God in service and offering.  Verse 2 says “SERVE the Lord with gladness.”  This is one of the Old Testament words for “worship” – an act or action given to the Lord, and in this case, with gladness!  And the second part of verse 4 has the corresponding challenge: “GIVE thanks to Him.”  And interestingly, this particular word for “giving thanks” specifically means “speak it out loud.”  We are to give thank