Well, good morning, Lighthouse. You ready for the Word of God this morning? Well, how's your Thanksgiving preparations going on? You got your turkey? Got your turkey? Got your stuff all ready? Got your family plans? Got your travel destination? So Thanksgiving, though, and gratitude this morning, our passage has a lot to do with gratitude and being thankful. The message, though, itself is not about the holiday in the focus here, though, is coming before God's presence for worship. Nevertheless, the applications from it are important to take into our Thanksgiving week. And I would also say even in all times in your life, these principles that you find are going to benefit your life. So the question to ask you this morning, what do you bring with you when you come to church? When you come into the Lord's house for worship, what do you bring with you? Now before we try to think in our head all the material items that we bring, hey, we might bring our Bibles, we might bring our phones, make sure there's no emergency fall along on there, or something to get the kids distracted so you can focus, but before we start even thinking on that, I'm gonna ask you what should you bring with you to church? I would argue what God desires most from you to bring before him is not so much material things, but the immaterial, what's on the inside. See, this is our time for God's people to gather together on the first day of the week, like the example that was set by the early Christians in the New Testament, and to worship the God of the universe, our Savior. We call him Jesus here at Lighthouse. See, God desires us to bring a grateful heart before him, ready to serve, ready to praise him, and to encourage your brothers and sisters in the Lord. I heard this phrase this week, something along the lines of this one, that gratitude will do a lot for your attitude. Gratitude will do a lot and so much for your attitude. And this is absolutely true. See, learning to keep a thankful heart and consistently expressing it will do so much more for your attitudes and towards life and how you perceive other people. It just makes your days all the more sweet. Makes your days so much sweeter when you learn to continue with a grateful heart. If we set our minds on the things just being so unfair and all the wrong that is around us, it sours our attitudes and how we approach our days. Some would respond, well, I really don't have that much to be thankful about, so how could I? It's a fair question, but stay tuned into the message and then we can try asking that question again. Our text this morning is a short psalm this morning, but the content within this psalm seems to just be limitless. So don't assume immediately, well, short passage equals go home early today. We'll see. Psalm 100, verses 1-5. We're going to read it together. A psalm of praise. So we immediately know our category of what this psalm is going to be. Psalms are full of praise. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God, it is he that made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him, bless his name. For the Lord is good, and His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations. Heavenly Father, we thank You for such a powerful passage and song of praise that we get to take application to our hearts, not just in always how we treat our worship services, Lord, but how we enter in aspect and manners of all life, Lord, how we can take a manner of thanksgiving and we can keep a grateful heart because of the God who You are, Lord. But Lord, thank you for being our God, and thank you that we get to be your people. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. So first, beginning in the psalm, there is a call to worship, a call to lift him in worship, especially with song. It's universal. It says, make a joyful noise. And the recipient is to unto the Lord. This phrase, make a joyful noise, is a singular word in the original Hebrew language. Defined as shouting loudly, crying out. It can be used as sounding an alarm or a shout of victory. Proclaiming something with enthusiasm or triumph. And notice in all of these sayings, something is vocally heard. The Hebrew verb here is used in several contexts throughout the Old Testament. This provides insight on its entirety. First, we also see it when it comes to military victory. In Joshua 6, 5, the people shouted as the walls of Jericho fell. And it came to pass that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout, and all the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend of every man straight before him." This shout here signifies the triumph in the power of our God. We also see in the recognition of kingship, 1 Samuel 10, verse 24, The people shout to acknowledge Saul as their king. And Samuel said to all the people, see ye him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people. And all the people shouted and said, God save the king. See, in Psalm 100, this shout is directed at God, acknowledging his rule over creation. And if they can shout for their earthly kings, How much more can we make a shout for the King of kings and to the Lord of lords? We also see it used in enthusiastic worship. Enthusiastic worship. I'm not talking about crazy worship where you guys are running around the auditorium, knocking each other down, throwing your clothes off everywhere. I'm talking about enthusiastic worship. Psalm 47 one, the chief musician, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. Oh, clap your hands. All you people. We get to engage in clapping to the beat to the song. Sometimes you guys don't always stay in beat, but I'm very appreciative when you guys are engaged into the music. All ye people shout unto God with the voice of triumph. Now I'm not talking about you guys just yelling out in the auditorium, but your voices are heard when you bring your song before him. I want to hear your singing even beyond the instruments behind me. I love it when I can hear the voices from the congregation. I don't even mind if it overpowers the band. This usage, though, here in Psalm 47, it parallels that of Psalm 100, where the act of shouting is tied to exalting God's greatness. So with all this in mind, here's how we can define to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. In the 100th Psalm, to make a joyful noise is a command to vocalize enthusiastic praise to God. Rooted in the concept of triumph and joyful proclamation, it is a call to worship our Lord wholeheartedly. It's a reminder that our worship is not just internal, but ought to overflow into outward expressions of joy and reverence for our God. See, when we are singing our songs of praise, there ought to be visible excitement in it. Now, I'm not going to demand, I'm not going to demand this out of you. There ought to be a visible excitement, but I'm never going to force you to do it because you can also be very expressive, but your heart not in it. It's indeed going to start with the heart and out of the heart shall flow that expressive praise. God does not accept forced worship, nor does God accept forced service. He writes it to all ye lands. The lands can also be rendered as the idea of nations, all of the world, inviting, not just limited to just the people of Israel, as many of the Jews wanted it to be. God's desire and call for the worship of him is extended to all of the lands. Psalm 67, three through four, let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee, just all the Israel. Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon the earth. Salah. Pause, think about, meditate upon these things. God's call is for all the people to come to worship him. And if we want the rest of the world to join us, it's going to start with us getting worship, getting our praise right. Our praise and joy ought to be so contagious to the point that those who don't know the Lord see something in you and they want to know why. What is different about you? Why is it the way that it is for you? Praise, it is praise for our God that opens the opportunity to share the gospel with the people. That's why we teach here that the key to witnessing to a lost person is not so much equipping yourselves deeply into apologetics and just being able to answer all of those questions and just cut them down. While I think apologetics have their place and I think they're great to be studying the Word of God in such a way to answer questions, but that's not the center and key of witnessing to people. The key in centering to witnessing to people is to praise our God openly. so that they hear, they want to know more and receive the gospel from you. God desires to fill his church with saved people, but we're going to be able to reach them with our praise openly for God, giving opportunity for us to take them and teach them what the Bible says about their sin and how they need a Savior. And here's the Spirit of Virtue. It says to serve the Lord with gladness. Worship involves active service, meaning not just a passive observation. It's gladness, not obligation. This should be what characterizes our service to God. We get to be here at church today. And I'm sure many people at home watching right now, they desire and they long to be here with us. Nevertheless, I'm very grateful we'd be able to provide a way for them to follow along online live. Come before his presence with singing. This phrase translated his presence literally means before his face. often conveying the idea of standing directly in God's presence. See, in ancient Israel, worshipers would come to the temple to offer their praise and they would offer their sacrifice. For believers today, it reflects a spiritual intimacy with God through prayer, praise, and devotion. Sunday mornings aren't exclusive to his presence, but being in his house today, if God is most definitely coming before his presence. You get to be in God's presence today because He is here filling and inhabiting the praises of His people. Real believers getting together. God is present. Hebrews 10, 21 through 22 says this, and having a high priest over the house of God. The new covenant, our gathering together, a meeting place, we call it the house of God. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. These are some prerequisites good to come to church. Your heart cleansed and your body's physically washed. for your brothers and sisters sake. Hebrews 4.16, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. Meaning that we can approach God with absolute confidence. Entering into his presence requires a joyful heart expressed through song. See, worship is relational. It's about drawing near to God with gratitude. Singing in worship, we design it. It's designed to express joy and gratitude. Colossians 3, 15, 17 says this, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to that which also you are called in one body and be thankful. We at Lighthouse Baptist Church are made up of many members, but we are one body. So as a body, we can be thankful unto him. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. We also find in this passage the approach to worship. It says, enter into his gates with courts, with thanksgiving and praise. This word gates refers from the history to the entrance to the temple in Jerusalem, symbolizing that the act of entering God's presence. Courts here would refer to the temple courts, the areas where the worshipers would gather to offer those sacrifices and offer those praise. Thanksgiving is absolutely essential for that worship. It acknowledges God's provision, His faithfulness, and our dependence on Him as our creator and as our sustainer. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name we read. I was actually surprised to see here that the word here for be thankful is also used to be the word confess in the Old Testament to make an acknowledgement, meaning that it's not just about feeling thankful, but it's actually expressing your thankfulness. The word bless is also used to mean the word to kneel, implying a reverence and an adoration before God. The Lord calls on us to honor him, to exalt him with both our heart and our voices. See, in the Old Testament, the temple represented God's presence. For believers, Jesus has already provided that direct access to God. A benefit that you have under the new covenant is you have a greater access to God than that in the old system. Romans 5, 1 through 2. Therefore, being justified by faith, that word justified means to be declared and announced righteous, by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by the same one by whom we also have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Hebrews 13, 15 says this, By Him, by Christ, therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. See, in today's application in our church, You can enter the doors and call that the gates. Enter those doors with a thankful heart that I get to be in God's house today. I get to fellowship and worship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. There's no better place to me to be on the first Sunday of the first day of the week on a Sunday morning. Then in the auditorium, we can call these the courts when it's time for our corporate worship. We can make it a priority to be in your place and on time for these sayings so that we can lift praise and worship to our God wholeheartedly. He also gives us in this Psalm the reason for our worship. We can worship because the Lord is our God. Know ye that the Lord, He is God, He is He that made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Now in here, there are two names of God listed in the text. Lord and God. The word Lord, by the way, if you're reading in your Bibles and you see L-O-R-D capitalized, it's meaning it's using God's covenant name, I Am, Yahweh. Some would pronounce it as Jehovah, whatever you want to pronounce it as. The Lord, Jehovah, God's covenant name emphasizing His eternal nature. been described as the self-existing one. I am that I am. The same one he gave Moses when speaking to him at the burning bush. We also see General, God, Elohim, the first name you see when you open your Bibles to that very first book, to that very first chapter and very first verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This highlights God's majesty and His creative power. Together what they affirm that the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob is the one true God, the same one who is our God. And to know, it says, know ye that the Lord is God. It isn't simply just about having a knowledge. It's a very unique word that implies a distinguishment. It's distinguishment in a command to acknowledge something. It is beyond just a simple intellectual understanding, but knowing and distinguishing that this is a relational that I have with this God. I wanna point out, I don't have it in my notes, that you might hear that Islam claims that, oh, well, Jews, Christians, Islam, they all worship the same God. That's not even close to being true. If you examine the Quran, you'll see that their version, Allah, is not relational at all. Our God is personal with us. Our God has a close relationship with us, and he desires love and grace and promises and comfort to you. Allah does not. He is the one who made us and not ourselves, we see. We are the sheep of his pasture. See, contrary to modern day opinion and thought, we do indeed have a creator. And we are not the product of what we title as macro evolution, one species evolving into another species. We do not find any evidence of that in any kind of science. All of His creation will one day bow to Him and acknowledge Him as Lord. They will confess Him as Lord. All of creation will one day see Him as Lord Savior, or they're going to see Him as Lord Judge. If we are all created by God, created by Him and for Him, that means all creation has accountability towards Him. That's essentially the heart of what the world has a problem with having a Creator, is that if there is a Creator, then logically I am designed for something and I am accountable to that Creator. We see very clearly in the Bible who that Creator is, and that one day we all indeed are accountable to Him. We are his sheep. This isn't necessarily applying to all people, but he invites you to be a part of his fold though. The sheep in the shepherd illustration with our relationship with God is absolute perfect because as you know, anyone who's worked with sheep or been around sheep, are they the brightest of creatures? Nope, they're pretty not bright at all. Some would even say that sheep are bad. So I couldn't do that thing at that. We often aren't as well. We can relate to sheep so well. We need a shepherd. Jesus is the good shepherd. John 10, 11, and 14, we see him say that. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth life to his sheep. I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known of mine. We can worship also in the light of His character. For the Lord is good. That same word, Jehovah. His mercy is everlasting. His truth endureth to all generations. We see in this verse, we see number one, God's goodness. See, God's goodness, when we say God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good. That is not dependent upon what's good around us, but it's part of His nature. It's part of who He is. God is good. Next, we see about God's mercy, His covenant mercy. This original word here, I love it here. Our Hebrew professor even named his dog after it. He would emphasize it over and over. Chesed. His chesed. This means covenant mercy, His covenant faithfulness. You'll find that all throughout the Psalms, all throughout the Old Testament, God's hesed. Jews take pride and they take so much comfort into this word. His faithful covenant keeping God, His character, God's hesed. His hesed demonstrates his unrelenting commitment to his people and it's rooted in his character and not so much who you are or your actions. We also see God's faithfulness across time, meaning God is consistent. He was faithful in the past and the same God who's faithful in the past will always remain faithful here in the present and in the future. As we approach worship, here's three things that we can apply based off upon this text. Number one, know who God is. He is our creator, our shepherd, our savior. Worship is a response to his identity and to his goodness. Second, we can celebrate our belonging. When we come before the house of the Lord, we can celebrate our belonging, that we are his people. If we are his people, we are loved, we are cared for. This truth that brings about comfort and purpose. Trust, we can also trust in God's unchanging nature. His goodness, His love, His hesed, His faithfulness remain constant across all generations, giving us hope, giving us absolute assurance. See, the hundredth psalm shouldn't only be a reflection upon a yearly thing, but it's a perfect relationship to what our country is about to celebrate. See, I love Thanksgiving. I love our time to get our food, to spend time with families. Sometimes families send a quarrel more than they take Thanksgiving. And it's a time also for us as God's people to think about and remember God's goodness and God's provision in your life. I've always found the irony though, that the very next day to Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Black Friday, on Thursday, thank you for all the stuff that we have. On Friday, let's get some more stuff. See, I'm not condemning getting some good deals on Black Friday for things, but do not let it get the best of you, as we have seen in all of those videos. It's like, I've seen Thanksgiving, you're already planning about all the things you're gonna buy for Black Friday. I'm going to tell you this, from my flesh speaking, the Monday after Thanksgiving is so much better anyways. As I said many years ago to my youth group, Cyber Monday is where it's at. I don't care about Black Friday. I prefer to do the online shopping. See, when we focus on gratitude, it shifts our mindset from bitterness to joy, making our days so much sweeter and helping us to approach life and be able to treat others with grace. See, we at Lighthouse, let's make it a habit of gratitude, not only for what God has just does in our life, but also for who he is, the God that you serve. So let me ask that question again now. How can I be thankful when there's little to be thankful about? After you've examined what have we just done here, is there truly little to be thankful about? Do you know the Lord? Because if you do, there's no such thing as little to be thankful for. If you don't know the Lord, reflect back on all the things that we've said so far about who He is. He loves you. Proved it through giving His only begotten Son to live a perfect life, to die on a cross for your sin, and defeated the grave. I invite you to sign up for those basic Bible truth classes if you haven't taken them with us yet. We'll show you how you can indeed trust the Bible is true, how you know where you'll spend your life after death in heaven. See, to those who do know the Lord, though, the Bible says, let the redeemed say so. We can give that shout of joy, that shout of praise. We're actually going to sing one more song here at Lighthouse. It's a bonus song. After you read this psalm in mind, I invite you to participate joyfully. I'm going to invite the band as we pray to come up. And it's a very beloved song we sing here at Lighthouse. How can I keep from singing? Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for such a joyful and such an amazing psalm of praise that we have, Lord. And sometimes we can feel like, oh, we know these things, we know these things, Lord, but this stuff ought to excite us, Lord, and bring it back to your character, bring it back to our position, Lord, because it's what gets us through the day. It's what brings us that joy, that comfort, that confidence that we can have for you, Lord, that life isn't merely just some kind of accident or merely just something that we can just go through and endure. all the hardships and just because it is what it is, Lord, but that you have a purpose in all of it, Lord, that you have a greater plan behind all of it, Lord. So thank you, Lord. Those who are your people, you know, we get to just express that joy and may that joy just be so contagious to this world that they can't help but want some of it, Lord. So may it first start with us, Lord. May it first start with making sure that gospel is right and making sure that our praise is genuine and flows from our blips and not just from our hearts only. Lord, we love you and thank you for our time. We get to come before you and worship you as we do one song before we dismiss our day, Lord. We ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's all stand. It's our invitation and our song of praise. Okay, one, two, three, four. How amazing is your love How can I keep from shouting your name I know I am loved by the King And it makes my heart sing in the troubled times. Sing when I win. I can sing when I lose my step and fall down again. I can sing because you pick me up. Sing because you're there. I can sing because you hear me, Lord, when I call. How can I kill you from singing your praise? How can I ever say enough? And it makes my heart, I am loved by the King. All right, you all be seated.