Pastor Slaughter
11-25-2021
Thanksgiving
Theme: One in Gratitude
Text: Psalm 100
I love thanksgiving. I love the time we get to spend with family, and I love the time we get to spend with friends. And I love the food. Thanksgiving is a day where we specifically focus on blessings that we have in our lives. One of the blessings that I am always thankful for during thanking but often times goes unnoticed throughout the rest of the year, is food. In America we are so blessed to be able to have food so readily available. I mean all you have to do is go to Kroger, Walmart, Meijer and look around you and see all the choices you have, vegetables, fruit, junk food, your choice of meet. And if we don’t want to cook then we go to a restaurant and order something there.
With all the food that is so readily available, we can take it for granted. Most of us have no clue what it is like to legitimately go hungry, to not be able to afford dinner or lunch. Because food is so common in our lives, we take it’s blessing for granite.
There is something else that is very common in our lives as Christians that we can take it for granted. We hear about it every week at church, if we were raised in a Christian home, we have heard about it since we were children. We can take for granted Who God is and what he has done for us. Once we take for granted who God is and what he has done then we lose the gratitude for all the blessings he has given us. So today we are going to be reminded of all that God has done for us which in tern will lead to a grateful response. Our theme for today is One in Christ: One in Gratitude.
Psalm 100 is a little gem that encourages us to show gratitude by worshiping God. True worship stems from knowing who God is and what he has done. Now, the structure of the psalm is simple. It contains two invitations to worship followed by a supporting reason for worship.
Our first call to worship is when the psalmist says, “Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.” The first reason for worship is “Know that the Lord is God.” The God who is revealed to us in the Scriptures, He is our God. He is the one who made us! Because he made us, we all belong to him. I mean it makes sense, doesn’t it? If you made something, I could not come along and say that it belongs to me. In a similar way, God made us. We belong to him. We are all united in a sense, we are all one in a sense, because God made us, and each one of us belongs to him.
God made humankind to serve him, but the whole human race went astray. One sin is all it took for us to go astray. Part of knowing that The Lord is God is knowing what he has done for us. He sent his Good Shepherd, He sent Jesus to lead his people, his sheep, to lead us back to him.
When we think of it, if we look at what God did to move us from where we were to where we are now, it is a great cause for us to worship the Lord with gladness to come before him with joyful songs. God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might be the righteousness of God. God Made Jesus who had no sin to be sin so that we can Enter his Gates that we can come before him and worship him with thanksgiving, so that we may serve the Lord.
When someone has done something great for us, we usually respond with gratitude, and we show our appreciation by doing something for them. For example, when someone gives us a gift, you show your gratitude by sending them a thank you card. When God has given us the most amazing gift of his son, we can thank him by worshiping the Lord.
On Thanksgiving Day it is easy for us to be grateful for all the blessings we have. We look at how God has blessed us physically and we are reminded how God has blessed us spiritually. As we think about how God has blessed us spiritually it easier for us to show gratitude for what he has done by coming to worship on this special occasion. But when thanksgiving is done, how quickly do we forget about what God has done in our lives? And if we forget the impact Christ had in our lives, then we may be tempted to not show our thankfulness by doing either of two things, 1) by not worshiping, or 2) by simply going through the motions when we do worship. We stand up, sit down, sing, hear some readings, Hear the sermon, and think, I can’t wait to get home.
The cure for worship fatigue (as I like to call it) is found in the second reason that the psalmist gives us to worship, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
Because the Lord is good, loving, and faithful we know that his promises will stand firm forever. God kept his promise that he made to OT believers by sending his Son. The same God of the OT is the same God of the NT who keeps his promises that we are his people the sheep of his pasture, that noting can snatch us out of his hands, that our sins are paid for, that heaven is our home. When we find ourselves going through the motions at worship not being thankful for what God has given us, we need to be reminded once again of who God is (good, loving, faithful) then joy and gladness, thanksgiving, and praise, flows naturally from hearts and lips that know Lord’s goodness.
My brothers and sisters in Christ we really have something that unites us don’t we? I mean we all have something to come together and praise God for, right? The same love that died for your sins, is the same love that died for the sins of the person sitting next to you, behind you, on the other side of the church. We have the same God, who is good, loving, and faithful to all generations, we belong to him, we are his sheep. We are united in Christ. We are also united in our response to the message. Hearing God’s love for us leads us to show gratitude by worshiping the Lord with gladness, coming before him with thankfulness, praising his holy name.