November Sermon of the Month
An Attitude of Thanksgiving!
Psalm 100

If there is one sin that is most prevalent today, it is the sin of ingratitude. God does so much for us. Our indebtedness to Him is enormous and yet we rarely, or at least infrequently, offer thanks for what He has done. In fact, most professing Christians don’t even offer thanks over their meals, much less offer thanks for all that God does in their lives. I’m embarrassed to say that sometimes when I’m busy inhaling my food to enjoy the rest of my lunch break, even I forget to bless it!

We are much like the little boy who was given an orange by a man. The boy’s mother asked, “What do you say to the nice man?” The little boy thought for a minute, handed the orange back, and said, “Peel it.”

An attitude of thankfulness is not just something that is required at the dinner table. It is not just a nice thing to remember on the 4th Thursday of November. It is the attitude that we should have every day and every hour. It is an attitude that is not dependent on what is going on in our lives at the moment. Despite all the mishaps of life, we can still be thankful.

Corrie Ten Boom, who experienced the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, reminds us that even in the worse situations, we can be thankful to God for something if we look beyond our current circumstances.

In her classic autobiography, The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom tells of the time she and her sister were forced to take off all their clothes during Nazi inspections at a death camp.

Corrie stood in line feeling forsaken and defiled. Suddenly, she remembered that Jesus hung naked on the cross. Struck with wonder and worship during that seemingly forsaken moment, Corrie leaned forward and whispered to her sister, "Betsy, they took His clothes, too."

Betsy gasped and said, "Oh, Corrie, and I never thanked Him."

Thanksgiving does not merely require generosity in giving. It requires recognition of what our Savior has already done!

In our text, the Psalmist moves us from thanksgiving to praise, which ultimately escalates into worship. He begins by giving us five commands.

1. The first command is in vs. 1, "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth."

It means to "shout with the force of a trumpet blast." This is a shout of joy to the Lord that comes from the very depths of your being. Maybe He solved that problem you encountered on the job. Maybe He has given you encouragement right when you needed it the most. Maybe He has provided a blessing, and you realize that it came from Him. From the depths of your being you proclaim your praise.

Roland Allen tells about a veteran missionary who introduced himself and said, "I was a medical missionary for many years in India. . . . I served in a region where there was progressive blindness. People were born with healthy vision, but there was something in that area that caused people to lose their sight as they matured."

This missionary had developed a process which would arrest progressive blindness. People came to him and after he performed his operation, they left realizing that even though they would have become blind, now they were going to be able to see for the rest of their lives.

The Indian people never said, "Thank you," because that phrase was not in their dialect. Instead, they spoke a word that meant, "I will tell your name." Wherever they went, they would tell the name of the missionary who had cured their blindness. They had received something so wonderful that they eagerly proclaimed it. That’s really what Thanksgiving is all about. When we realize the goodness of our God, we ought to want to proclaim His wonderful name to everyone who would hear.

2. The second command is vs. 2, "Serve the Lord with gladness."

It doesn’t say, "Serve the church." It doesn’t say, "Serve the preacher,” or “Serve the leaders,” or “Serve the organization." It says, "Serve the Lord." A great part of our thankfulness to God is involved in our service to Him. I know that it is easy to feel that either the Church or the preacher are what or whom you serve; but I’ve learned that when you serve the Lord, everyone that you come in contact with is benefited from the overflow.

You ought to have one reason for being in church and Jesus ought to be your Reason. When He becomes your reason, you are not at church because your friend goes there. You are not there because the pastor is looking for you to serve him. Instead, you are there to serve the Lord. So many people have got it all wrong; they think that it is enough just to show up. They think that it is enough to give their offering. But it is much more than that; God has chosen all of us to serve. When we serve Him with gladness, hungry folks will be fed because of our service to the Lord; the naked will be clothed because of our service to the Lord. When we do the work of the Lord, needs are met and the Holy Spirit is able to minister to us!

3. The third command is, "Come before Him with joyful songs."

Another passage says, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord." In these first three commands, God has said, "I want you to be happy. Shout with joy, serve with gladness, and come with joyful songs." Now just take a moment and consider the people around you. Do they look happy? Or are they just sitting there like they had sour grapes for breakfast with lemon juice to chase it down?

Understand that we are to "Come before Him and serve Him and sing His praise with joy in our heart."

4. Vs. 3 says we are to "Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture."

God took every bone and joint and He welded them together with sinews and muscles and covered them with skin and gave us eyes that see, brains that think, and fingers that can pick things up. God made us, inside and out. He made you the way He wanted you to be. And He made me the way He wanted me to be. As you look around, if you don’t like what you see in others, that’s OK. Just wait, because He is still working on them. That’s good news for me because He’s not satisfied with the unfinished product. He’s not satisfied with the mean ways I have. He’s not satisfied with the bad temper and areas of weakness in my life. And even though I’m not what I ought to be, since I’m in Him and He is in me, I am not what I used to be. And you are not, either. Therefore, we ought to give Him thanks.

The Psalmist makes it clear Who's in charge! He says, "We are His people, the sheep of His pasture." Most of us want to be shepherds, not sheep. The problem is, we don’t think that it’s any fun being sheep! However, we don’t know where the still waters and green pastures are. And every time we go out searching for them, we invariably end up in a far country like the prodigal son. Every time we go out searching, we get off the right road. This is why the Lord is asking us to be the sheep and let Him be the Shepherd. I really like that because every now and then, I find myself in need of some calmness in my life. During those times, the Lord will lead me beside the still waters and the green pastures. I’ve just got to let Him lead.

5. Command #5, vs. 4, explains how to experience it all! "Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him and praise His name.”

Sometimes life hurts! Sometimes life has its disappointments. Now I must choose. I can yield to those pressures and have myself a pity party or I can "Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise!  [I can] give thanks to Him and praise His name.” You see, when my praises go up, it is true, His blessings come down. “For the Lord is good and His love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations." (Psalm 100:5)

In the Old Testament, the temple symbolized the presence of God. So whenever the people came to the temple and entered the courtyards, they knew that they had come into the presence of God. But the temple no longer exists. So instead of going to the temple, we go to the Church or sanctuary.

Sometimes I’m miles or hours away from the Church. The good news, however, is that God is everywhere. He is with us as we drive on the highway. He is with us when we go to school or work. He is always there. This means that wherever I am, He is there also. This means that wherever I may be, I can thank the Lord!

John Henry Jowett, a British preacher of an earlier generation, said this about gratitude: "Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic." What did he mean? He meant that gratitude, like a vaccine, can prevent the invasion of a disgruntled, discouraged spirit. Like an antitoxin, gratitude can prevent the effects of the poisons of cynicism, criticalness, and grumbling. Like an antiseptic, a spirit of gratitude can soothe and heal the most troubled spirit. When you change your attitude to one of gratitude, it becomes easy to give God thanks!

Let me close by quoting lines from some ancient prayers used in the Black Church. Many of these lines are well-known all over the Black Church and they remind us what it means to be thankful.

One of the lines is, "Lord, I thank You that the blood is running warm in my veins this morning and that my bed was not my cooling board." ‘Cooling board’ is a reference to the slab of concrete or marble on which a dead body lies in the mortuary. They just let your body cool down.

Sometimes the old saints would simply say, "Lord, I thank You that this morning when I rose, my bed was not my cooling board. I have one more day to praise You and thank You. You've been good."

Sometimes there would be another line, "Lord, I want to thank You that You've allowed my golden moments to roll on. You could have stopped my life at any point, but You allowed my golden moments to roll on." No matter how you express it, it is always good to give God some THANKS! So even after the 4th Thursday in November has come and gone, every day for the believer is a DAY OF THANKSGIVING!

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