So we have Thanksgiving Day coming up this week. As I've said, we're excited for it. I'm excited, obviously, for food. Sometimes I get a little too excited for food. That's just me. I'm sure some of you have that same feeling, but the day obviously means more than that. In my previous sermons on Thanksgiving, we've noted how this is a uniquely Christian holiday. It's a uniquely Christian holiday. The concept of giving thanks is rooted in our understanding of God as our provider and in the redemption that Jesus Christ has won for us. And so it's uniquely Christian to give thanks. And to help us prepare for this week, usually, or many times, churches will have a Thanksgiving message so that we are thinking properly as we approach that day, that holiday of Thanksgiving. And this evening, to do that, I wanted to look at Psalm 100, which is called here a Psalm for Thanksgiving. It invites us to worship and to praise and to a giving of thanks, not just as individuals, but as a body, as a corporate gathering. And this is fitting because of what we discussed this morning, because we are to be united in Christ. There should be unity within the body of Christ and We see here that unity means that we should all be giving thanks together. We should be lifting up our praise to God. This should be a part of our worship. And this is a psalm that has elicited a great deal of praise. We just sang a few minutes ago an example of that. All people that on earth do dwell. That is from the Genevan Psalter, and it is based on Psalm 100. I don't know if you noticed that as we were singing that, but it follows very loosely here the themes that we have translated for us this morning, or this evening. It was first published in 1561 to the tune of the old hundredth. And you might say, why would they call a tomb the old hundredth? Well, this is based on Psalm 100. And so that's where we get the name for the tomb. And this is also where we get our doxology. that we just sang a few minutes ago. So Psalm 100 has inspired quite a bit of worship, and that's just within the last few centuries. It also has done so for millennia. It also comes from an interesting place, or comes in an interesting place here in the canon of Scripture, because it follows a series of Psalms which focus on the Lord as King. Now this psalm, Psalm 100, does not make explicit the kingship of our God, but it is still linked. A lot of theologians have said that. For instance, Dr. William Barrett has noted that this is the culmination of what he calls the theocratic psalms, the theocratic psalms, which would include Psalms 93 until here, Psalm 100. It comes on the heels of those other Psalms, because after we have now focused on the fact that our God is King, we should give thanks to Him. We should lift up our hearts in praise for Him. And so, this rounds out that section of Scripture. Now specifically, this psalm calls us to come together corporately to offer our thanks to God. And so we'll note this evening that we should gladly come to worship. We should gladly come to worship. And that is something that we are commanded here in the first three verses. And there is a reason given in verse three as to why we should gladly come to worship our Lord and our King. We'll also notice here that we should thankfully gather together for worship. And that's in verses four and five. And verse five there gives us a reason for why we should gladly worship together. And so to give us an outline this evening, we'll just break this psalm up into two parts. The first three verses show us that we should gladly come to worship, and then the last two tell us that we should thankfully gather for worship. And I am making a subtle distinction here between those two points. Let's consider the first one as we consider that distinction. We should gladly come to worship. Again, verses one through three, we begin a psalm for worship. Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful sing. Know that the Lord himself is God. It is he who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Now, anytime I teach on Psalms, anytime anyone teaches on Psalms, I think it's important to point out a point, and this is something that some of the people who've been through Psalms with me probably get tired of hearing, but I want us to notice that the first line there is inspired Scripture. It is inspired Scripture. This is the title, That tells us what this song is about. Now I'm not talking about what comes above that. If your Bible is like mine, maybe there's bold text right above the psalm. In this case, it says, all men exhorted to praise God. That is not inspired scripture. That is something that the translators have added to help us have a little commentary as we're going, to help us see what we're reading, what to expect. It's something that we've noticed as we go through, say, the book of John together. There are these little section titles. that's not part of the inspired text. Usually anything that's bold is not part of the inspired text there. But, below that, right above verse one, there are those words, a psalm for Thanksgiving. That is inspired, that's in the original Greek text, and it is translated, well, it's in the Greek, also in the original Hebrew text, it is translated from there, and it is a part of inspired scripture. what God has recorded for us, and it is a psalm for Thanksgiving, a psalm or a song that is for the worship of Israel, for the corporate worship of Israel, what they would sing together to praise the Lord. This is a call to worship in the congregation of Israel. as they engaged in their public worship. And in this case, specifically, we see that as a psalm for Thanksgiving. Now, this may sound strange to you as we think about that. Okay, what is Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is a concept that's actually entrenched in the law. And we might not think about Thanksgiving as something that's part of the law, but it is. It is something that involves a public acknowledgement Uh, there is a, a confession element to Thanksgiving in the original language, the word involved. confession, as well as an offering to express thanks for God. And we see in Leviticus 7, for instance, Leviticus 7, verses 12 through 15, there is a Thanksgiving offering that's listed there. You can take a look real fast over there. So right before the book of Numbers, Leviticus chapter 7, course Leviticus is a book on the Levitical practices and chapter 7 verses 12 through 15 to give us that instruction if he offers it by way of Thanksgiving. So there is a sacrifice that can be offered by way of Thanksgiving. Then along with the sacrifice of Thanksgiving, he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil and unleavened wafers spread with oil and cakes of well-stirred fine flour mixed with oil. With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for Thanksgiving, he shall present his offering with cakes of leavened bread. This he shall present one of every offering as a contribution to the Lord It shall belong to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offerings Go ahead and skip over to Leviticus 22 Leviticus 22 And verse 29 Leviticus 22 29 When you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted. Now, what are we seeing here? We're seeing that this is part of a sacrificial system. This is something where people would offer up sacrifices to express their thanksgiving to God. And that's not something we typically think about when we think about offering praise and offering our thanks to the Lord. There was, in scripture, this element of sacrifice, of confession, of acknowledgement of our sins and of a lifting up, a casting of our sacrifice before the Lord. Now, this is not the only way that the people offer Thanksgiving. They also offer Thanksgiving through Saul. You know how I know that? Because we are reading a psalm of Thanksgiving. So they could also sing their Thanksgiving to the Lord. And this was another way where you could offer your thanks. When we pray, this is not so dissimilar from what we pray and what we just prayed a little while ago. We pray our confession together. And as we acknowledge our sins before the Lord, What do we do? We then also acknowledge the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made, the offering that he made. We plead that as our sacrifice. And then we thank the Lord for that perfect once for all sacrifice. So we have a basis of thanksgiving as believers. And that basis is through Jesus Christ. And so we can sing songs of thanksgiving to the Lord because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. And that's just the title. That's just the title. So let's think about this. We see from the idea of thanksgiving, we see these commands that come out. And again, we don't typically think, okay, we're offering thanks to the Lord. What's up with all these commands? There are a lot of commands that are given here. The first one is, shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Well, okay, that command makes sense. If we're offering thanks, we should shout joyfully to the Lord. This is not a suggestion. As I said, this is imperative. It is a command. Worship is not optional for the believer. Worship is not optional for the believer. We should sing, even if that means that our voice may be heard by other people. That's actually important. You say, yeah, but my voice shouldn't be heard by other people. Actually, it should be, because that encourages other people who think their voice shouldn't be heard by other people. And they start to sing, and we find out as we sing together, hey, it doesn't sound as bad as... Well, we thought it would sound as we sing out to the Lord, as we even shout out to the Lord. This is, in fact, a joyful shout which mirrors the triumphant cries that ancient Israel would have given us a one of victory in battle. In our scripture reading this morning, we read about two victories in battle in the book of Numbers as God gave victory over the Canaanites there. This is how they would have those shouts. We see that in Jericho too. Joshua chapter six, verse 20. We see the people shouting in victory. Why? Because the walls came tumbling down. We say Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, but it was really the Lord who fought the battle of Jericho, right? And those walls did come tumbling down. There's a shout of victory. There's a shout of joy here. They shout where we are praising the Lord, because we do have victory. We have a God who has who has obtained victory over death, over sin, over suffering. And we see that in Jesus Christ. We have victory in Christ. We have victory in Jesus. And so we should shout joyfully to the Lord. And this is something that is perhaps particular to the people of God. I say that because the word Lord here, and I should have fixed it on the screen, this is actually, In many of your translations, you have Lord with the big capital L, and then what's known as small caps. You have O-R-D, but those are also capital letters, and they are smaller. than the other capital letters. That's a font known as small caps. What is that? Because we do see Lord where it's just written capital L and then regular lowercase O-R-D. Well, this is a clue from the translators that there's a different underlying word. The word Lord that we would normally translate Lord is Adonai. That's my Lord. He is my Lord. Adonai, that's Lord right there, but that's not the word that's used here. The word that's used here is a different word. It's Yahweh. Yahweh. That's the covenant name of God. And some of your translations might even have that. If you have a Legacy Standard Bible, for instance, this evening, you don't have Lord there, you have Yahweh, Yahweh. And I think that's probably a good practice. Why did they translate it Lord in both instances? Because that's an ancient, ancient, ancient practice by the Jews where they said, the Lord has told us. not to take his name in vain. If we never say his name, we'll never take it in vain. Of course, that's bad thinking right there, but anytime they came across the name of God, they wouldn't say Yahweh, they would say Adonai. And they would even put the vowel pointing at the bottom there to indicate this is pronounced differently. This is to be pronounced Adonai, rather than Yahweh. It's to be pronounced Lord, and that's, Even millennia removed, we have in our English translations a long-standing practice of translating Yahweh. Lord is Lord but this is actually the covenant name of God here and so shout joyfully not just to the Lord but to Yahweh shout joyfully to the God of the covenant the God who has redeemed us this is the name of God that was given as as the Redeemer who would bring the people into the covenant who would Rescue them out of Egypt and bring them into the promised land This is the God that they are shouting to and this is the God that we shout to as well and that we might even Interpret the remainder of this verse Or it says all the earth That's higher. It's it's the land the land of Israel and That could be a way that we translate it. But it doesn't necessarily have to be confined to the land. As one study here notes, the Israelites were to be a people who would attract the nations to worship God. The nations would come to the temple so that they could also worship God, and really, God is not just the God of Israel, he's the God of the whole earth. And yes, we all need to be acknowledging the God of creation. And so we have verse two here and it continues, serve the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful singing. This is another couple of commands that he gives to us. So we not only are to shout, we're to serve and we're to come before him. with joyful singing. Let's just think about the word serve. Obviously, we're commanded to serve God. That's something that we should do. We don't typically think of that as something that's connected to worship, but it is. It is connected to worship. Our service is an aspect of our worship. Sometimes we don't think of it as being thanksgiving, but it is. A way that we offer thanks to the Lord is through serving him. and through serving one another as well as we gather corporately. In fact, the Lord warns Israel about those who would serve with just lip service. Turn to Deuteronomy 28. Deuteronomy 28. This is the chapter of blessing and cursing. as they are about to enter into the land of Israel, into the promised land. The Lord gives a series of promises, either to bless or to curse Israel based on their behavior. Chapter 28, verses 47 and 48. 28, verses 47 and 48. He warns them, because you did not serve the Lord, and again, that's Yahweh, Yahweh your God, with joy and a glad heart. For the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies. whom the Lord will send against you in hunger and thirst and nakedness and in the lack of all things. And he will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. This is a harsh, harsh curse that he has promised upon the people. And so obviously he wants the people to serve him and not just to serve him, but note there in verse 47, to serve him with joy and a glad heart. This is something that they are to do, not just by way of lip service. I guess I gotta get up, go to church on Sunday, and oh, I gotta get in here, and oh, I gotta do this. I gotta take care of the kids. I gotta do this, gotta do that. I mean, certainly there's aspects to that in our lives where we don't enjoy doing all of it. But ultimately, we come in because we love the Lord and we want to serve the Lord. It's part of our worship. The Reformation Study Bible explains this. It says, loving service is a grateful response to the grace of God. We remember the grace of God in our lives and how we are unworthy of God's favor, and yet he has shown it to us so we can then extend that favor to others. We can actually have a glad heart as we serve the Lord. Even in the New Testament, how does the New Testament command us to give? We even have that verse back there by the offering box, 2 Corinthians 9, 7. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. We're supposed to give out of joy, out of gladness. I once had, In jail ministry, I had an inmate come up to me once and he said, let me ask you a question. Is it okay if when I'm at church, if the pastor knows how much I'm giving and he tells me I'm not giving enough? I said, what? And he said, yeah, I put money in the offering box. And he said that the pastor said God told him I hadn't given enough, I need to give more. I said, no, that's not okay. That is not okay at all. The scripture says we should not be giving under compulsion. We should decide in our heart ahead of time, and this is something that we give to the Lord, not with any kind of compulsion, not grudgingly, oh, I guess I gotta set it at 100, 150, 200, 250. I've seen churches do that. There was a church I knew of that passed the offering plate, And when it came back around, I don't know why the pastor's involved in all this, he shouldn't be. He's looking in the offering plate and he tells people, that's not enough, let's dig deeper. And he says, let's pass the offering plate again. And they just kept doing it, and I think they did it seven times. Yes. It is, it is. This was a congregation that thought it's all about money. all about money. And so that's the kind of abuse that some congregations endure. Now, Scripture is very clear here that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. Our service should be with gladness. And so that's why we try not to twist anyone's arm about anything. We want people out of the joy of their hearts to do what they do. Because it's not something that you can command. It's something that has to be between the person and the Lord. And it should be something that we all do together, of course. as we are all investing in kingdom work, as we are all serving, and that service isn't just with money, of course, it's with time, it's with our particular gifts, it's with how we can come together and make sure that the whole body has what it needs together. And that should arise from a place of genuine joy. Now that brings us to the latter half of this verse. Not only do we serve the Lord with gladness, we come before him with joyful singing, with joyful singing. And so we kind of have this rounding out here. We were supposed to shout joyfully to the Lord. Now we are supposed to have joyful singing. Our worship should not be begrudging or half-hearted. Now, of course, as a parent, if I see my daughter not singing, I do kind of force her, you know, that's just kind of my prerogative as a parent to say, hey, You need to stand up straight, and you need to actually read the words, and you need to sing out, because that's something that you should be doing. But as she gets older, hopefully it's something that just arises naturally from a heart of joy. And that should be something that we all have. As we are thinking about what the Lord does, sometimes we just break out in song, and we're happy about what the Lord has done. And so he says, come before him or come, yes, come before him with joyful singing. By the way, I say this first point is gladly come to worship. I'm not necessarily talking about come to the worship service. I'm talking about coming before the Lord, come before him. worship this can be something that you do on your way to church this could be something that you do even outside of church come before him why because of what verse 3 says verse 3 gives us a command which provides the basis for our joy it says no there's the command no no that the Lord himself is God, or as we could say, know that Yahweh is God. We have that covenant name of God, and we have the other word for God here, which is Elohim. Elohim, if you've heard that term, that's the term that's used here. Know that Yahweh is Elohim, know that Yahweh is God. No one else is God. This is a confession that, again, comes from the law. Deuteronomy chapter four, verse 35. To you, it was shown that you might know that the Lord, he is God, and that there is none, there is no other beside him. There is no other God beside God. I once had someone push back and say, well, wait a minute, I thought you said Jesus is God. It says there's no God beside God. So that's right, there's no God beside God. But you said Jesus is God. That's right, Jesus is God. Well, how does that work? Said, I'm glad you asked. And so we got into a little bit of a discussion on the Trinity there. There's only one God. But Jesus is God, the Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God. And yes, that is a big thought for us that causes our brains to hurt as we think about that, but it is also what scripture affirms. There is only one God, and yet scripture also assigns deity to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. There's not three gods, though. There's only one God. And so we have to hold all of that together. I mean, if God created this whole world, and he created us, and he knows each one of us, and he knows our thoughts, and he knows our fears, and he knows our futures, and he knows the number of hairs on our heads, he's probably bigger than us. And he knows all the molecules in this universe. And there's not, as R.C. Sproul said, one maverick molecule. He knows it all. He probably exists in a way that is beyond us. And so it is logical that he is something that's a little bit more than what our minds can comprehend, a little bit beyond the experience of this creation. For he created this creation, he's beyond this creation. Know that the Lord, he is God, and that there is no other besides him. There's no other. The Shema, the great confession of the of the faith that Israel still recites today. The Jews, believing Jews, I should say, non-Messianic Jews, recite Deuteronomy chapter six, talks about the fact that there is only one God. When fire came down upon Mount Carmel, when Elijah is facing off against the prophets of Baal, in 1 Kings 18, verse 39, the fire of the Lord came down, it consumed the altar, it consumed all of it, and what did the people do when they saw it? They fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God. They were convinced, the Lord, He is God. That should be our confession as well. Yes, Yahweh, He is God, the Lord, He is God, there is no other. This expression, of course, affirms the exclusivity of God, but there is no other God. There's no other idol that's going to help us out there. There's no other deity out there that's going to help us. It is only God. Our lack of thanks sometimes comes from our not properly acknowledging God in our lives. We don't see him as God. We don't see him as the one who provides for us. And so we, because we don't acknowledge him, we don't give thanks like we should. Take a look back to Psalm 46, verse 10. Psalm 46, verse 10. He says there, cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Cease striving. You know, sometimes we have lives of striving because we don't acknowledge him as God. Because we think we are gods in our own lives. We're going to control our fates. We're going to control our destinies. We might not say something like that, but we live that way sometimes. I gotta figure this out. The bills are due, what am I gonna do? And our first thought isn't to pray. Our first thought is to make plans and to do this and to do that or to worry or to eat until we feel better or to drink until we feel better or something like that. And We have striving in our lives. Know that He is God. He's gonna take care of us. We're commanded to know here as well. Or know that God is with us. Well, one, knowable. If we're commanded to know God, God's knowable, right? He's not so transcendent from his creation, what I just said about the Trinity. He's not so transcendent, so high above everything else that we can't know him. He actually commands us to know him. Know him and know that he is God. True thanks cannot come unless we know God. We can't enter into his presence unless we know him as our God. Unless we know him through his son, Jesus Christ. True worship does not arise or true worship, I should say, arises from knowledge, which is not merely intellectual, but it's also experiential, a knowledge that we experience that transforms who we are, a knowledge that is relational, that brings us into a relationship with the Father. That's what we see next. The psalmist continues here. Yahweh is our creator. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. Oh, this is something we need to hear. He has made us, not we ourselves. We need to know that. We need to hear that. In our sinfulness, we think we're self-made. Unbelievers certainly can wear that as a badge of pride, being a self-made man. But what do we see in scripture that Israel took? Israel from the nations and he made Israel into a nation. He took us from the sinful line of Adam and he made us into a people. This emphasizes the sovereignty of God, that he is sovereign over salvation, over creating us, but it also assures us. It assures us that we're eternally secure in him. If we didn't make ourselves, then we're not the ones who keep ourselves. He's the one who keeps us. He's the one who makes us eternally secure. He's the one who is our God. He's the one who makes sure that we are his people. that we are the sheep of his pasture. I remember reading Hosea and studying Hosea, it just, it stuck out to me. Hosea was to name his kids certain names which would communicate a message to Israel. And one of those names, Hosea 1-9, was Lo-Ami, Lo-Ami. Not my people. Lo means not. Ami means my people. And he says there, name him Lo Ami. For you are not my people and I am not your God. Oh my, he's saying this to Israel. You are not my people and I am not your God. He warns them, this is a warning to them. for them to repent, for them to return to him, to stop with the idolatry, to stop with all the spiritual fornication and to come before him and to repent and to atone. But thankfully, the Lord, even in Hosea, he gives good news. Hosea 2.23, the Lord there says, I will also have compassion on her who has not obtained compassion. And I will say to those, watch this, I will say to those who were not my people, you are my people. And they will say, you are my God. That is great right there. He can take a people who are not his people and turn them into his people He can do that with us right You can do that with anyone This is our God. This is the God we worship and we are his people faithfully And we are his sheep the sheep of his pasture He is a shepherd who watches over us. This is why Psalm 23 has been such a comfort to so many people as they think of him as their great shepherd. Psalm 23 gives us that image, and it's an image that really gets carried forward into the New Testament of Christ, who is the great shepherd. In John chapter 10, verse 16, we see that he takes people there who are not even his sheep and he brings them into his fold. Oh, just like we just talked about there. He can make a people who are not his people, his people. He can take sheep who are not his sheep and make them into his sheep. He can bring them into his fold. This is the God who we worship, the God who we serve, and there are plenty of reasons here to give thanks. And so as we come before him, as we come before his presence, we should be giving thanks. We should be coming from wherever it is that we were coming from. If we have been in darkness, we should come into the light. If we have been from the nations, from the Gentiles, we should come into Israel, spiritual Israel. We should come into the corporate gathering, in fact, where this is most visibly seen. And that brings us to our next point here. Thankfully gather for worship. Thankfully gather for worship. Verses four and five. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. For the Lord is good, his loving kindness is everlasting, and his faithfulness to all generations. And so the psalmist gives us another command here, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. And these are just parallel thoughts here that would, evoke imagery of coming up to Jerusalem, into the gates of Jerusalem, to the temple, into the courts of the temple, where you could offer up this praise. We would all be together in the temple and offering up the praise of the Lord. And remember, in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was operating, but he was operating differently. Sometimes he would come upon individuals like prophets or kings, but mainly he operated out of the temple. This is where the Spirit's presence was in the Old Testament. People would come to the temple, and they would there receive the regeneration of the Holy Ghost. They would there receive God's presence. And that's where they would come into the presence of the Lord of course but they would also be gathering together as a corporate body of believers offering their thanks to the Lord. Now today we come to Christ who is the true temple. We don't need to go to a temple in Jerusalem anymore to have our sacrifices, to have our sins atoned for. He was our once for all sacrifice. He paid for it all. He took care of it all. And we see that he has made, in fact, all of us into a temple of the living God. The Holy Spirit, rather than being in the temple made with hands in the Old Testament, he is now made in the temple of our hearts. He or he has come into the temple of our hearts. We have the Holy Spirit And we can enter boldly into Christ's presence With the sacrifices of praise look at Hebrews for just a moment Hebrews chapter 10 Hebrews chapter 10. And look down to verse 19 here. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place. by the blood of Jesus, that's a term for the temple, but he's not talking about the temple, he's talking about this heavenly reality that we have, this holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is his flesh. See, the veil is not the veil hanging in the temple anymore, the veil is his flesh. Since we have a great high priest over the house of God. Let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. See, he has offered up to us the true temple there, the true sacrifice, and we can now come before him with the sacrifice of praise for what he has done for us. Even as we pray, we can give thanks. That tremendously comforting verse in Philippians chapter four, verse six, it commands us there, be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto God. We are invited to pray to God, to offer up our prayers, our petitions, our supplications, our requests, but we do so with Thanksgiving. We do so with Thanksgiving. We bless the name of our God and we offer thanks through Jesus Christ. Thanksgiving is more than just a momentary act. This is something that should continue in our hearts, something that just continues on. It permeates every aspect of our being. Psalm 116, verse 17. Psalm 116, verse 17 reminds us of the sacrifice of Thanksgiving, where we acknowledge God for his abundant goodness to us. And we see that really come out in verse five, as verse five gives us the reasons for us to offer thanks. There are really three reasons, yes, three reasons for this thanks. For the Lord is good, his lovingkindness is everlasting, and his faithfulness to all generations. And think about this. First, God is good. The Lord is good. Yahweh is good. His goodness is not fleeting, it's not conditional. Oh, thank the Lord for that. It's not a conditional goodness. It's intrinsic to his nature. If we want to understand what good is, we need to look to God. Don't need to look to us, because we waver. There's shadow of turning within us. Not with the Lord, though. He is good. As one study says here, God is the source and perfect example of goodness. If we want good in our lives, we get it from the Lord. If we want to be good, if we want to be good, We need the Lord's life working through us so that we can be. And we can't have good outside of his kind provision, but when we do find that we have good, we should be offering thanks as we gather together. God is good, God is loving, God is loving, God is loved, the New Testament tells us. But what kind of love are we talking about here? Just very briefly, this is the Hebrew word chesed, chesed. And it is a loyal, covenantal love. It endures forever. It's a steadfast kind of love. It parallels the agape love of the New Testament. And, we see that God is love here. In fact, this is very similar phrasing to Psalm 136.1, where we have that same repeated refrain there, that his loving kindness is everlasting, or his love endures forever. I think the NIV translates it that way. Of course, there's the psalm. His love endures forever. That's based on that. God's love is based on the covenant that he made with his people. The blood that was sprinkled upon them as they entered into the Mosaic covenant. God has made a covenant with us too. Jesus says take and drink as we partake of the Lord's supper. He says take and drink for this is the blood of the new covenant which is poured out on your behalf. We are in a new covenant because of what the Lord has done and now he is our covenant keeping God. Yahweh is in a covenant with us as Christian believers, as Believers in Jesus Christ as Gentiles. We've been brought near in Christ Into this covenant and so his loving-kindness is not just for ancient Israel. It's also for us as well It's also for us as well. And by the way, it's everlasting. It's not gonna fail. It's not gonna fail It's not gonna be like tomorrow. He wakes up and he's a little moody and You mess up and he's like, that's it We're done No, thank God that he is not that way. His love and kindness is everlasting. God is faithful on that point. Now some of your translations might have truth there, that his truth to all generations, and indeed his truth is unwavering. His promises never fail, in him it is yes and amen. But this is also the definition of faithfulness, And many translations have faithfulness here. And it spans generations, assuring us that he will not fail. His promises to us will always be true. And if he says everyone who comes to him, he will lift up on the last day. And Jesus says that in John six, guess what? He's going to lift you up on that last day. You can be assured of that. That's part of the good news of scripture. It's good news that God is faithful. It's good news that God is faithful. It's not good news for unbelievers. Because God is faithful to judge too. We can either have our judgment in Christ or we can have our judgment upon ourselves. But God is faithful. He will judge. Thankfully in Christ Jesus, He has already judged our sins, those of us who believe in him. So these are all reasons to offer our thanks up to God this week. So how should we apply that? How should we think about that? Psalm 100 here calls us to a joyful, thankful worship. I came across this in Warren Wiersbe. I wanted to share it. It's a little bit of a larger quote here, so I'm putting it up on the screen. We are controlled by the Holy Spirit of God and the Holy Word of God. We will reveal it in the way we worship God. Instead of imitating the world, we will be led by the Word and the Spirit to be joyful in the Lord, submissive to the Lord, and thankful to the Lord. and the world will see the difference. Finally, note that a spirit of thanksgiving helps us overcome some of the sins in good standing that too often invade our lives, complaining, idolatry, pride, and ingratitude. It was when our first parents became unthankful that the human race began that terrible descent into sin and judgment. Instead of being thankful for what they had, Adam and Eve believed Satan's lie that the Lord was holding out on them. And this led to their sin. A thankful spirit is a triumphant spirit. I hope that you are thankful and I hope that As we gather corporately, you're thankful, and I hope as you go out from here that you are thankful, because thanksgiving shapes our hearts to worship rightly. It combats sin in our lives, like complaining and pride and ingratitude. It keeps our focus on God's unchanging character. So how might we apply all of this? this week. Well first, we can let our worship be marked by joy and gladness and I hope that is true as we sing, as we give, as we just interact with one another. I hope that there's a sense of joy and gladness because this is what the Lord has wrought. Sometimes we do have to remind ourselves because we're sinners. Sometimes we have lots of meetings and so we have to stay up real late to work on sermons When we go to stand up and preach these sermons, we can't keep straight whether it's morning or night because we have skipped that much sleep. But even then, even then, we should have a genuine joy and gladness, right? Even when times are going tough, we should have a genuine joy and gladness. We should, as we offer our thanks We should also see this, that only those who know the Lord can offer acceptable things. Only those who know the Lord can offer acceptable things. If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, you are not going to have genuine things to offer, because you have not experienced the forgiveness of sins, which then prompts you to offer that thanks. But even if you're a believer, you have to think about your knowledge of the Lord and grow in that, strive to grow in that knowledge. That is the prayer that Peter prays, that you would grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That should be something that we should all strive to do as we seek to offer thanks. The more you learn about God, the more you will be thankful. The more you will be thankful. And as you do grow in your knowledge of God, let thankfulness permeate your life. Let it transform everything about what you do, how you worship, how you serve, and how you live. And I hope this week, as we gather around the table, you will have plenty of reasons to offer thanks to the Lord.