Give Thanks

Good morning. How does someone inspire action? How do you motivate someone to change or to pursue a goal or to buy your product? Well, in September 2009, Simon Sinek took the stage for a TED Talk with the intention of answering these questions. He studied Apple, he studied Martin Luther King and the Wright Brothers. He wanted to see what differentiated them from everyone else in their respective fields. He came to this fascinating conclusion that while every company and organization knows their what, they know what they do, fewer know how they do it. and most are not clear on why they even exist. He says what makes great leaders stick out and rise up is not their what or even their how, but their unwavering commitment to their why. Companies and people that are driven by their purpose and their belief, they're the ones that ultimately inspire action and loyalty and change. He uses Apple as one example. Apple believes in challenging the status quo in everything that they make according to them. That's their why. So when you buy an Apple product, you are challenging the status quo. Your purchase, it has a purpose. You're moving the needle. You're making progress. You're changing the world. Simon Sinek explains that people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. This explains why every single person in this room is perfectly comfortable with buying a computer from Apple. But we're also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player from Apple, or a phone from Apple, or a DVR from Apple as well. But Apple is just a computer company. There's nothing that distinguishes them structurally from any of their competitors. Their competitors are equally qualified to make all these products and they've tried, but nobody bought those products. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Well, Simon Sinek's talk has gone on to be one of the most popular TED Talks on YouTube in the history of TED Talks. His trademarked golden circles diagram, which is just a picture of three concentric circles with the word why in the middle of it, it's gone on to become apparently an essential leadership tool for many organizations and individuals. And it costs $13 to download that diagram off of his website, which, yeah, that sounds pretty expensive when I can take pencil and paper, do the exact same thing by myself for free. And I bring this up because as I've been studying for this morning's sermon, as I've been looking at Psalm 100, This golden circle diagram, it came to mind as I've been reading through Psalm 100. The psalm is about giving thanks. That's what the superscript tells us at the beginning of the psalm. It may have been written as a psalm to be sung while performing a thanksgiving sacrifice, which this would be a kind of peace offering that's performed during the Jewish religious system. But as you read through this psalm, It's clear that it's not just written to be an accompaniment or background music for the priests. No, this psalm is written to motivate us, to give thanks to God. It's only five verses, but this short psalm, it inspires action. It provides such clear and compelling answers to these questions of why and how and what. as we consider giving thanks to God. In a sentence, Psalm 100 teaches us that God's character should inspire his people to thank him with wholehearted joy. Let me say that again. God's character should inspire his people to thank him with wholehearted joy. It's three questions of why and how and what. They're gonna serve as our outline as we look at Psalm 100 this morning. Why should we give thanks to God? How should we give thanks to God? What do we do to show thanks to God? Start with that first question, why? Why should we give thanks to God? In Psalm 100, the answer is firmly rooted in the character of God. We should give thanks to God because of who God is and how he considers us and what he has done for us as his people. If you look at the way the Psalm is laid out, it seems to be made up of two parallel stanzas. Verses one and two provides us with instruction. Verse three gives us a reason for these instructions. Verse four then gives us more instructions, followed by verse five, which gives us another reason. Verses three and five, they give us the grounds, the basis, the inspiration, the motivation for giving thanks to God. So verse three, we see that the Lord is God. And in verse five, we see that the Lord is good. And at the most basic level, If you want to know about who the God of the Bible is, Psalm 100 tells us that he is a good God. And it doesn't stop there. The psalm gives us three clear and compelling reasons for why God is good. Let's take a look at all three of them. First, we see that God is our creator. It is he who made us, and we are his. Everyone who has life and breath and being, everyone has a reason to thank God. Because without God's creative power, we would not exist. We would not be here. Over the centuries, there have been many attempts to explain where we come from and how we came into existence, right? And how someone views their origin is going to be directly tied to the view of God's character, how they view who God is, or even if God exists. Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria in the fourth century points out just how unique the Christian view of creation is compared to all the other religions of the world. The Bible describes a God who created the universe out of nothing and on his own accord. According to God's word, our world is not a product of divine violence, some sort of heavenly war, or random chance, or preexistent unformed matter, or an unexplainable bang, or random genetic mutations over millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of years. The Christian doctrine of creation, it doesn't begin with what happened. It begins with who made it happen. It begins with God. And as we see all throughout scripture, our world, our existence came about simply because the all-powerful, all-good, eternal God wanted to make creation happen. At the nation of Christ, God is good, or rather the source of goodness. And the good has no envy for anything. That's because he envies nothing in existence. He made everything from nothing through his own word. In other words, there was no selfishness. There was no competitive agenda in the creation of the world. It was a pure act of benevolence. God's goodness and his power is the sole reason for all things that exist. So therefore you exist because God, because God exercised his goodness and his power. He breathed life into you. He thought it was good for you to exist and therefore here you are. But notice the psalm doesn't just root our thankfulness in creation and existence generally. Right? He's more specific than that. He's speaking to those who are God's people, the sheep of God's pasture. Yes, everyone who has ever existed, everyone has a reason to give thanks to God, but those who are God's people have exceptional reason to be thankful. That brings us to the second reason why we should give thanks to God. That God is our shepherd. God is our shepherd. Verse three is specifically addressing the people that belong to God, the people that God has purchased for himself, the people that have come underneath God's care and guidance and protection. If you think about shepherding, it's a really hands-on job. Shepherds need to spend constant time with their sheep. They need to know the sheep, they need to know the land that the flock inhabit. They need to know the surrounding dangers to the flock. They need to know what threats are for the flock. If a sheep goes astray, it's the shepherd's job to retrieve that sheep and return it to the flock. Shepherds, they're always on guard. They're always working for the good and the safety of their flock. And those who belong to God, can rest securely under the watch and care of the all-good, all-powerful shepherd. Psalm 23 shows us that God is our shepherd. He makes his people lie down in green pastures. He leads them beside still waters. He restores their souls. He leads them on in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. dissipates fear in the most dreadful of circumstances, he walks alongside and he comforts with his guidance. The intimacy and the care that God's people experience as the sheep of God's flock is unmatched. It really, it cannot be compared to anything in this world. I mean, even the most loving parents, the most romantic spouse, the closest of friends, all have some sort of imperfection in them. You cannot look to anyone and say that they only and always have your best interests solely in mind. Sin has corrupted the motives and desires of every single human being in history, so even the best of intentions and the most kind and compassionate acts, they all have some sort of self-serving agenda behind them, even if it's just an inkling. But when God brings someone into his care, he does it out of pure and utter goodness. God's agenda, God's interests, God's intentions, they're always going to be aligned with his character. He's never going to waver, he's never going to change, he's not going to waffle. If you're one of God's people, there is never going to be a situation in your life where you can rightfully doubt God's leadership and guidance. See, that kind of doubt, that's what the serpent was hissing in Adam and Eve's ear in the Garden of Eden, whispering, does God really have your best interest in mind? Is God really as good and as powerful as he says he is? That's the kind of doubt that caused the first sin to enter into the world, the kind of doubt that plagues and tempts each and every one of us to this day. It's in sin that we reject the invisible God's shepherd-like oversight, and we put the sheep in charge. I mean, think about that for a sec. If God created us to be like sheep in his flock, it means that we were created, all of us, we were created to be led. And if you're not being led by God, By default, you're being led by someone or something else. It may be a political leader or a cultural icon or your own intuition, but someone who is not the all-good, all-powerful shepherd, you've given them ultimate authority over your life. If it's not the shepherd, you're being led by another sheep. You're allowing yourself to be guided and protected by someone who needs just as much guidance and protection as you do. And if your leader is wandering around aimlessly like a lost sheep, then they're headed for a sure destruction. And they're leading you toward death as well. In sin, that's been the direction of every human being since the fall in Genesis 3, right? Romans 1 says that everyone, everyone has exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. But God, but God in his infinite, in his unique God-like goodness, God has also been working since Genesis 3, since the fall of mankind. And he's been working to bring his people back into a right relationship with him. The psalmist writes that God isn't just the God of creation, he's the God of salvation. That brings us to our third reason why we should thank God this morning, that God is the covenant keeper. God is the covenant keeper. In verse three, when the psalmist writes, we are his people, he's reminding us of one of the most important statements in the entire Old Testament, in all of the Bible. See, when God saved Israel from Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai, he established a relationship with them, a unique relationship, a covenant relationship. This is a formal relationship that was marked by loyalty and faithfulness. And this relationship bound God and Israel to one another. Succinctly put, the relationship was defined like this. I will be your God, and you will be my people. The statement is, it's the covenant formula. And we see this statement all throughout the Bible. This covenant formula, I will be your God, you will be my people. This is the basis of God's relationship with his people. So if you think back to Exodus 19, God says to Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. For all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Later on, the prophet Jeremiah summarizes Exodus 19 like this, obey my voice and I will be your God and you will be my people. That relationship between God and Israel, this covenant relationship, it gets established at the very core of who Israel is. They will be God's people, their being, their existence, the foundation of who they are. is their belonging to God. And God ties his identity to Israel as well. He will be their God. He will bind himself to them. All the benevolent love that God used to create the world, all the gracious goodness that makes him God, that's what God brings to the table. when he enters into a covenant relationship with his people. Verse five, we see that God offers a steadfast love that endures forever. He offers faithfulness to all generations. And those two attributes, steadfast love and faithfulness, those two attributes are an essential word pair to understanding the character of God. Exodus 34, six and seven, God reveals his glory to Moses. Exodus 19, Exodus 34, two of the most foundational passages in the Old Testament for understanding the storyline of the Bible. Exodus 34, six and seven, God says, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. God says that he is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is who God is, this is how God's people experience him, This is what drives his relationship with them. His steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 100 verse five says that God is good because he is the God of steadfast love and faithfulness. His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations. And when Israel breaks their covenant by committing spiritual adultery against God, when they are unfaithful to God, when they go off and worship other gods, God's steadfast love endures, and his faithfulness remains. The Old Testament prophets, in the midst of pronouncing judgment against Israel for breaking the covenant, they also pronounce this covenant formula to remind Israel of their identity as God's people. They provide hope that God will remain true to his promises, that even though Israel has been exiled and punished and deserted by God, that God's steadfast love will endure, and his faithfulness will remain. Zechariah 8, behold, I will save my people from the east country, from the west country. I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be my people. and I will be their God in faithfulness and in righteousness. Jeremiah 31, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. The prophets declared that God would finish what he started. And brothers and sisters, That right there, that is the ultimate reason that we have to thank God today. God started with a promise to send a son of Adam to crush the serpent in Genesis 3.15. And then he promised to send a son of Abraham who would bless the entire world. Then he promised to send a son of David who would have a throne that would be established forever. And he promised in Isaiah that he would send a servant who would suffer for his people, be crushed for our iniquities, heal us by his stripes, who'd be oppressed and afflicted, but remain silent like a lamb being led to the slaughter. And if you fast forward to the beginning of each gospel account, We're introduced to all the ways that God has fulfilled those promises in his Son, Jesus Christ. Matthew 1, Jesus is the Son of David and the Son of Abraham. Mark 1, Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. Luke 3, Jesus is the Son of Adam and the Son of God. John 1, Jesus is the Word of God and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. See, God's steadfast love and faithfulness, it was ultimately displayed in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's through Jesus that God displays mercy and grace for sinners, that he forgives iniquities and transgressions and sins, that he upholds his perfect judgment to punish the guilt of his people just as he said he would in Exodus 34. It's in Jesus Christ that we find the sacrificial lamb and the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. It's in Jesus that none of God's people will be lost or missing on the last day. It's in Jesus that we find the eternal blessings of God, the eternal life offered. It's in Jesus that all God's promises find their yes and their amen. And for those who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we get to sing along with the psalmist. We get to sing this psalm, sing about the joys of personally knowing the good covenant-keeping Creator God. As we saw the other week in 1 Peter, that once we were not a people, but now we are God's people. Once we have not received mercy, but now We have received mercy. Christian, you have every reason to give thanks to God. No matter what your circumstances are, no matter what your trials are, what you may be enduring, what you may be facing, how you're feeling about God, or how you're feeling about yourself, you have been wrapped up into God's glorious plan of salvation through the promise-fulfilling work of Jesus Christ. If you're in Jesus, that means that God had you in mind, not just at creation, but in Genesis 3.15 when he proclaimed the first gospel message, that he would send someone to save us from sin. He had you in mind throughout the entire course of salvation history. He's planned your creation, he planned your salvation, and he has planned for your eternal glorification with him in heaven. He's brought you near to him. He's granted you access into his glorious presence. And Psalm 100 tells us that we should enter with joy and gladness and singing and thanksgiving and praise. That brings us to our second question this morning. Our second question, our second point, how should we give thanks to God? As you look through the various commands here, notice that the psalmist, he's not just commanding our actions. He's not just instructing what to do, he's instructing our hearts. He's instructing how we should do it as well. Joyfulness, gladness, thanksgiving, praise, these are heart postures. These are positions, these are conditions of your heart. You don't do joyfulness, right? You don't do gladness, you don't do thanksgiving, you be joyful. You are glad, you are thankful. He instructs our inner states of being. We truly give thanks to God by first bending our hearts and our affections back toward God. We do this in response to who he is and what he has done for us. We allow the great grace of God to overwhelm us and move us toward genuine thankfulness. how we posture our hearts toward God, that's at the core of right and true worship. According to Jesus, the greatest act of obedience to God, it starts with the heart. The greatest command is to love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Some of us may be looking at this psalm and think it's a little too charismatic for our comfort levels. That it sounds like the psalmist is telling us to be loud and vocal and that our volume is the ultimate test of our thankfulness. But I don't think the psalmist here is instructing on how we express our thanksgiving so much as I think he wants to first and foremost instruct the sincerity of our thankfulness and our thanksgiving. He's telling us to give genuine thanks to God for all that he's done for us, to not just give God lip service or a respectful nod. I mean, it's pretty clear how someone truly feels about a gift that they've been given by their reaction, right? So you might, for me, I think about the viral YouTube video of the kid that gets an avocado for Christmas as a prank, right? He's all excited, his parents give him the gift, he unwraps it, He falls out. What does he get? An avocado. Thanks. Clearly, he said thanks, but it was pretty clear he wasn't genuinely thankful for what he got. Well, contrast that with my 16th birthday. So I'm at my grandfather's house. We had just gone out for a birthday dinner. As we come back into the driveway, I see a ribbon on his car. Not a car, on his car. His red 1995 Nissan Pathfinder that we had spent years driving around in together. And I'm speechless. I mean, the first words out of my mouth, they weren't, thank you, they were, no way. Seriously, are you kidding? And then for the rest of the night, I couldn't help but just say thank you over and over and over and over again. I had never been more grateful in my entire life. Yeah, he deserved to be thanks for the gift, but I wanted to give him thanks. I had that gratitude for days and months and years as I drove that car around town, as I took it to and from school, as I drove all over the state with my friends. I felt this joyful responsibility to care for the car and to use it, to not just let it sit idle in the driveway, to keep it clean and to keep it serviced. I mean, this was, to me, this was an amazing gift, and I didn't want to squander it. And if that's how I felt about a rusty 12-year-old SUV, well, then how much more should we feel heartfelt gratitude for our eternal salvation? I mean, how much more should we express genuine heartfelt thanks to God for His saving work in our lives? One of the greatest gifts that God has given us is a new heart, a heart that actually has the capacity to worship and praise and thank Him. I mean, apart from Christ, our hearts are hardened and darkened and dead toward God. We have no true capacity to praise him. But one of the great promises that God fulfilled in Christ was this promise of a new heart. In Christ, we're born again. We're a new creation. We have the Holy Spirit indwelling in us and transforming us. And true thankfulness, it starts at our regenerated heart. It starts with our posture toward God, our view of God, our position towards God. Not just a respectful nod, you know, lip service thing going on about our day. And we see in this psalm that true thanksgiving, it does start in the heart. It's not just at the heart, though. It does affect our actions. True thanksgiving is displayed by what we do as well. That brings us to our final question this morning. do we do to give thanks to God? And according to Psalm 100, we enter into the presence of God to worship him. Notice the commands that are given here. They're all pertaining to the temple. They're all talking about the worship of God. Serving the Lord, that is a priestly task, that's temple service, that's ministering, that's what the Levites were set apart for, that's what they were called to do, to serve God by performing rites and religious ceremonies. Coming into his presence, at this point in the Old Testament, God's presence was in the temple. God's presence was In the temple, that's where God's people went to commune with God, to worship God. Enter his gates, enter his courts. Again, this is a call to enter through the gates of the temple, into the courts of the temple, to enter into the place of the public worship of God. And while the temple was a unique place of privileged worship for Israel, Notice, back at the beginning of verse 1, who the psalmist is speaking to. He's speaking to all the nations. This psalm, it seems to be pointing to the day when not only Israel would have access to God, but when a people made up of all the nations would be able to enter into the presence of God. The day where there will be no walls, no curtains separating God and man. And in light of the gospel and the coming of Jesus Christ, we give thanks to God by worshiping him in the way that Jesus has made possible. We worship him not in a specific place or in a specific building, But we worship God now in spirit and in truth wherever we find ourselves. When Jesus speaks of the temple being destroyed and rebuilt in John 2, he's referring to himself as the place where God's people come into God's presence. And when the temple curtain was torn in Matthew 27, revealed that all believers now have complete access to God through Jesus Christ. See, in Christ, we are constantly in the presence of God and nothing bars us from that presence. So if we're always in the presence of God, then there is always opportunity to express gratitude to God. Everything that we do can be an act of thanksgiving to God. Back in medieval times, jobs outside the clergy, they were seen as ordinary and of little value in the grand scheme of things, in a permanent or earthly sense. The only true callings were seen as religious callings. Priests and nuns and monks, those who were in religious life. But one of the great doctrines that was recovered during the Protestant Reformation a theology of work and calling. The reformers' emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, it helped Christians to see that all believers had priestly access to God. All believers were called into service of God in the world. Reflecting on this, Alistair McGrath, the Irish theologian writes, whereas monastic spirituality regarded vocation as a calling out of the world into the desert or the monastery, Luther and Calvin regarded vocation as calling into the everyday world. The idea of a calling or vocation is first and foremost about being called by God to serve him within this world. Work was thus seen as an activity by which Christians could deepen their faith, leading it on to a new qualities of commitment to God. Activities within the world, motivated, informed, and sanctioned by the Christian faith, was the supreme means by which the believer could demonstrate his or her commitment and thankfulness to God. Christian, God has given us every opportunity to exercise thankful worship in how we serve him in this world and how we engage with other people. The Apostle Paul instructs us in Colossians 3.17 that whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Whatever you do, however you spend your time, wherever you find yourself, whoever you find yourself with, our jobs, our families, our friendships, our studies, everything in our lives can serve as a means to giving thanks to God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. And while we should be thankful and in thankful worship of God wherever we find ourselves, in all circumstances, all situations, thankful worship is especially prescribed to our gathering here as the Jefferson Park Baptist Church. I mean, Sunday mornings, when we come together as a church, this is a particularly unique time for us to live out Psalm 100. I mean, think about it. Think about how Psalm 100 plays out in our order of service, everything that we've just done. Our singing. We sing congregationally, so that we can all make a joyful noise to the Lord and we can all come into his presence with singing. Our prayers, we have corporate prayers of thanksgiving, corporate prayers of praise, so that we can express praise and thanksgiving to God as a united people. Our scripture readings, our sermons, they're meant to help us know that the Lord is God and to know that the Lord is good. We spend time in the Old Testament. We spend time in the New Testament. We do this as a reminder that God's steadfast love and faithfulness has indeed endured forever and to all generations, past, present, future. And whenever we finish a scripture reading, we're reminded that whatever we just read is the word of the Lord. And what do we say? Thanks be to God. I mean, that's not just some sort of hocus-pocus magical incantation that we do for tradition's sake. We just put that into our regular service a few months ago. And the reason why we do that is because we actually want to express heartfelt thanks to God for his word. My family and I, we've been at Jefferson Park now for a little over two years, and it has been such a blessing to see how much care goes into curating our order of worship every Sunday. Week in and week out, I mean, our elders, they lead us and equip us with tools. These are tools for us to give thanks to God throughout our week. So if you're looking for a tangible way to grow in expressing thankfulness, pay close attention to what's said on Sunday morning. Pay close attention to the readings and the prayers and the sermons and then use that as a model for your personal worship and thankfulness throughout the week. Take notes in your bulletin. Keep that bulletin in your Bible. Keep that Bible in your backpack. Use it to help you express thanks to God. So we conclude this morning. I do recognize that some of us might find it hard to be thankful. to God given our circumstances and our situations in life, that there are certain things, there are certain afflictions that seem to cloud the goodness and the love of God. If that's you, I sympathize with you. I hope you know that we as a congregation are here for you. We hope that you feel comfortable to express your struggles to somebody in this congregation. I also want to commend the Apostle Paul to you this morning. See, Paul's life was marked by suffering. He certainly didn't experience a life of health and prosperity and happiness wherever he went, but Paul also knew that suffering could not overpower the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. I mean, even from jail, even from jail, Paul could still instruct the Philippians to rejoice and express thankfulness to God. He writes to the Philippians, rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ. If you claim Jesus Christ as your Lord, you have reason to rejoice. You have reason to give thanks. You can make your requests known to God and hold fast to the promise that you are being guarded by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who has made you and who keeps you and who cares for you as the sheep of his pasture. It's true for all of us who are in Christ. So may we all enter into God's presence with thanksgiving and may we continue to be inspired to live in thankful worship of our good and gracious God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are God and you are good. In view of this psalm, we pray that you help us know you more. We pray that you help us acknowledge you faithfully. We pray that we may be moved by your steadfast love and faithfulness towards us. May we be moved towards Jesus Christ. May we find rest in you as our shepherd. May we be bold to enter into your presence. May we be thankful in all circumstances. and may we live lives of glad service to you, our Lord and our God. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.