Psalm 100

Part 1

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

² Serve the Lord with gladness!

Come into his presence with singing!

So, if we have a good translation, we probably notice that there is a larger space between verses 2 and 3, between 3 and 4, and finally between 4 and 5. Our translation is helping us out, by pointing the breaks of interpretation and helping us understand the flow of this Psalm. So, hopeful we can see that this is a 4-part Psalm. This Psalm rotates back and forth. First it points to thanksgiving and then gives a reason why, the points to thanksgiving and then gives a reason why. Look at verses 1 and 2. Verse 1 is the theme, point, or main thrust of this psalm. As the people of God, we are called to make a joyful noise to God and we are called to do it all over the earth. Remember, Genesis 1:28 is our commission from God. We are called to spread the glory of God over all the earth. And in spreading God’s glory all over the earth, it must come from the joyful noise and joyful heart. As Charles Spurgeon said of this verse, "we have a happy God so we must also be a happy people spreading the joy of the happy God". Being thankful is tied to being joyful. No matter what circumstance we are in, are we a joyful people? If we are joyful, then we must also be thankful. If we are thankful, the we must also be joyful. Joyfulness and thankfulness go together like 2-sides of the same coin. And then verse 2 not only restates verse, but also compounds the thought by driving it deeper. This is an important interpretation tool that we must see in many of the Psalms. Hebrew poetry and song is hard to make sense of at times. So, understanding right interpretation tools is critical. Verse 2, the author drives thanksgiving to gladness. A synonym I find very helpful for gladness at times, is cheerfulness. We are not only to spread God’s gory all over the earth with rejoicing, but as we go, as we serve God we must do it with cheerfulness and gladness. Our gladness is a sign of true faith. We might have heard it said that it is not about doing a duty for God it is about delight. We have this idea that if we serve God in a way that is not delight or is not cheerful or is not full of gladness, then we must not do it. Maybe we have heard it said, it is not about duty. But this verse nails the truth on the head. If we serve God without gladness, cheerfulness, or delight, our faith comes into question. But we must serve God. We must do our duty for God. Because not serving God or doing our duty for God, brings our faith into question also. It is serving with gladness. It is working with cheerfulness. It is true duty with delight. And a thankful heart is doing this. And the second line drives the point further. A thankful heart, a cheerful heart, a glad heart that is delighting in duty is one that is continually in the very presence of God with rejoicing and singing. In the Hebrew culture, singing was a sign of delight and worship. So, as a thankful people we must be thankful, but it must be a cheerful, glad heart that is ever worshiping and delighting in the very presence of God. Coram Deo, we are always in the very presence of God. We must always be a thankful, cheerful, glad, rejoicing people full of thanksgiving.

Part 2

³ Know that the Lord, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

So why must we be thankful? The first reason we must be thankful is based in our knowledge of who God is. If we base our thanksgiving in our circumstances, then our thanksgiving will come and go. Our thanksgiving will be strong when life is good and none existent when life is hard. When suffering comes we will not be thankful at all. Spurgeon had an amazing line that still rings in my heart today. “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages”. This is a line about being thankful for who God is, for the knowledge of God. Even in the middle of trials, Spurgeon was and could be thankful because of who God is. Only when we know God can we truly know anything else, including ourselves. And as this Psalm then drives deeper, knowing not just God, but knowing God is our Creator and our owner. He created us and owns us. This is where true comfort comes from. And when we are truly comfortable then and only then will thanksgiving reign from our hearts. Our thanksgiving today, Thursday, and every day, must be rooted in God alone. Because then whether it is a wave or a blessing, a provision or a suffering, a gift or a pain, then and only then can we always be thankful.

Part 3

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name!

So, rejoicing, gladness, and cheerfulness must also be public. Here the Psalm in verse 4, shows that thanksgiving, joy in the Lord, a delight in who God is, must be a very public act. If we, as verse 1 shows, are going to spread the glory of God all over the earth through joy, that must be public. In verse 4, the public nature is the Temple, the very real visible presence and place of God and his people meeting. As I was reminded a few weeks ago in 1 Corinthians, we as the body of Christ, the church, are the very garden Temple of God. So, the very first public place that we must be a thankful people is in this group. Not only must this group be a big part of why we are thankful, we must also be very visibly thankful in this group. So, if we are sour, depressed, critical, angry, arrogant, greedy, or self-absorbed in church, that is the complete opposite of being thankful in the church. We must be in the very presence of God with thanksgiving. We must have a public devotion, a public awareness of thanksgiving we must have a public praise of God. And the imagery of blessing God is very important. The most basic sense of blessing someone is to give to someone something they do not have. When God blesses me with a house, He is giving me a house I did not have. If you bless someone with a new car, you are giving them something they do not have. The truth is, when we bless God we are giving Him something that he does not already have. But God has everything. That’s right God does have everything. But God does not have our praise, our thanksgiving, our gladness, our cheerfulness, that is our responsibility. We can bless God by giving him our praise, our gladness, our cheerfulness, and our thanksgiving. When we are thankful we are blessing God. As Isaac Watts wrote, “Let those refuse to sing, who never knew our God; But favorites of the heavenly king, must speak His praise abroad”.

Part 4

⁵ For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

The Psalm closes with another reason we must be thankful. In the first reason in verse 3, we saw that knowing God must driving thanksgiving, and knowing God and His relationship to us. Verse 5 gives us a knowledge of God, not in his relationship to us, but in His very character. Verse 5 is one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. God is good. This does not mean that God does good. This does not mean that there are certain periods that God has done good. This in Hebrew, is 2 words. God and good. Simply put God’s nature is good. God Himself is the very definition of good. That means every single action of God is good. Nothing that God does is not good. God is good. God is defined as good. If we were to look up the definition of the word good in Gods dictionary it would be one word. Good can be defined as God. And He is good which means he is steadfast love. God is also love. Every single action that God does is love. God himself is the definition of good and the definition of love and as the third line shows, he is also the definition of faithful. All that God does is good, loving, and faithful. Nothing is counter to any of that t God. That means that the cancer that Hiram has been bestowed by God is defined by God as good, loving and faithful. That means when my car broke down and is still breaking down, God is good, loving, and faithful in breaking my car down. As humans, we define good, loving, and faithful from a human perspective. But God is the very definition of good, loving, and faithful. That means as the people of God we must define good, loving and faithful from his perspective, from his character, from his very nature. Which means there is nothing in the universe that has happened, that is happening, or that will happen that is not defined by God as good, loving, and faithful. And in that truth, in that knowledge, how can we not be thankful. And that is the point I want us to show from this Psalm. If we are rooted in the very nature and character of God and His relationship to us, then we will always be thankful, we will always be rejoicing, we will always be cheerful, we will always be glad.