“The Gift of Thanksgiving”  Psalm 100  11/22/09 

Psalm 100 used to be included in a service called  “Lauds” and it is a Psalm often called “Jubilate”- “O Be Joyful”

What is the greatest human gift you can give?  When you go shopping Friday you need to remember this.   It is not a new car, a vacation, a new house, an education, a wedding, a new child.  The greatest gift, the Bible says, is love.  But love without thanksgiving is dry, silent, and taken for granted. What is the greatest material gift you can give another person?   I don’t know.  I think the greatest material gift you can give someone is something for which they will be thankful.  If you give a huge gift, but the person is not thankful, then it is not worth much and is disappointing to both the giver and receiver. 
Thanksgiving itself is not a gift.  It is a celebration of a gift.  It is the oil that makes all the other gifts go.  A car is great. But take away the oil from a car, and it burns up and rusts out.  Without thanksgiving, even the best gifts turn sour.  I have seen it at Christmas.  I can remember Kay finding out when the trucks would arrive at the store with the doll that everyone wanted- I think it was cabbage patch.  She went in the middle of the night, stood in a long line.  Paid an exorbitant price,  and then our daughter ignored the doll and played with the box.  Without thanksgiving, the greatest sacrifice, the greatest gift is scorned, and we are ashamed of it.  On the other hand thanksgiving can make the smallest gift be the largest.  So Jesus was grateful that the widow put in all she had, even though it was only a mite (worth less than a penny).  Because God was thankful, and because she was thankful to God, her gift became great.   Today I want us to look at one of my favorite Psalms- Psalm 100.  It is found on page- 552 in the middle of your pew Bible.
I will simply be going through this great and wonderful Psalm- one verse at a time.  I think sometimes when we read these very familiar passages of the Bible we walk right past a gold mine as if it were worth nothing at all.  So we’ll read some, stop some, examine things and see how they apply to our lives today.
                Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth-  This means to “shout joyfully.”  It means don’t hold back from proclaiming that we have joy in the Lord.  The world will tell us to not be so loud, and not be so joyful.  But Jesus said that He came to give us life and give it abundantly.  Implies make the noise together.
                All the earth is called to join in this song.  That is the Psalmist’s wish, it is God’s wish, and I hope it is our wish too.  I want all the world to know the joy that is found in the Lord.  I am not embarrassed that I have found something wonderful, and I want others to know about it.  God is God not just of one teeny tiny section of the world.  God is God not just of 2,000 years ago.  He is God today, and God all over.  Abraham was told that all nations would be blessed through him.  He wants His joy to be spread all over- Joy to the world, all the boys and girls.  The rest of this Psalm, John Stott says, is an exposition of why the nations should join in this joy.  There was a coke commercial that said, “I’d like to teach the world to sing”- it was a nice dream.  But singing about a soft drink is one thing, singing about the One who made you is a much nicer dream.
                Worship the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing.   There have been so many professional singers who have started out singing in the church--   Pavarotti, Mariah Carey, Tim McGraw, Beyonce, Darius Rucker- and the list goes on.  Christians have been singing from the beginning- because we have something to sing about!  It doesn’t say sing if you have a great voice- rather all of us are invited to sing.  I had an uncle once who Kay and I would sit with in Walhalla Presbyterian.  He sang so off key because he was deaf, people would turn around and look at him.  But it didn’t bother him.  He’d say, “God said to make a joyful noise.”  So we should.   We are a thankful people.  If we are not thankful, we at least strive to be thankful- for our scriptures say, “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.”  Paul said, “Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  Thanksgiving is a gift- because it reminds us there is always something for which we can give thanks.
                We have something for which we can give thanks.  Verse three says, “Know that the Lord is God, it is He who made us and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.”  We didn’t get here by a great cosmic accident, but we are here by the purposeful creation of God.  He made us, and therefore we owe Him our lives.  Without Him, we would not be here.   But He has also adopted us as His people.  He is the great shepherd who cares for us, feeds us, watches over us, guards us, and lays down his life for us.   Thanksgiving is a way that we acknowledge God- whom we thank.  We do not make up things to thank- like lucky stars, or fate, or the heavens or mother nature- there is, within us a deep desire to give thanks to what goes beyond nature- to God Himself. 
                Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name.       This is the verse that stands out in the whole Bible each November.   Thanksgiving does not depend on what you have or what you don’t have- that is an illusion.  I have known some people who are grateful to God who were living in cardboard huts.  I have met some folks in Mexico who lived in crates, but they were some of the happiest most grateful-to-God people I’ve ever met.   Thanksgiving does not depend on things going well.  This too is an illusion put out by our consumer culture.  Paul and Silas sang in prison in Philippi.  You can go to Philippi today and see the prison that has been preserved because they sang in it.  A huge church was built over its location.  When we enter his gates- that is go through the doors to the sanctuary- we leave our burdens at the door.  We hang up our problems as we take off our coats to go in  God is always worthy of praise, and when we are able to praise God in the worst of circumstances, then we have learned one of the great secrets of the Christian faith.  It lifts us up- when we lift up our hearts to God.   We are a blessing to God when we praise Him.  When we bless God, it blesses our own souls.  When we curse God, it brings down our own souls.  Thanksgiving is a gift in that it is hard to be thankful and worry at the same time. 
                It is easier to give thanks to God when things are good.  We should not forget but count the blessings of God.  We are particularly blessed.  Our county has the lowest unemployment in our state- while those without jobs are still hurting, it is great that our unemployment is lower than the national average.  Yesterday our cheerleaders won the state championship for the fourth time out of five years.  Chapin, Dutch Fork and Irmo have perpetually had the best SAT scores in our state.  The lake is up.  We are blessed in many ways- ways beyond our own control.
                For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. God’s goodness consists in his love which never stops.  God will never divorce you.  God will never leave you high and dry.  God has been faithful before- true to who He is and does, and we can count on Him.  He doesn’t use us up and discard us like Antoinette Davis did to her 5 year old girl, Shaniya.  She did not learn that from God. But He cares for us, and does it faithfully. .   The African Americans have a saying, “God is good all the time.  All the time God is good.”  That is, God is good whether good things are happening to us or not. God defines what good is, because He made everything and knows how everything is supposed to work.   Thanksgiving is a gift in that we stop and think of the goodness of God- and turn our hearts toward Him. 
                Thanksgiving is not something you eat. It is not even an attitude. It is a gift to us.  It is a prayer.  To be thankful for your life, implies we have someone to whom we are thankful.  To be thankful to no one makes no sense.  To say thank you to ourselves- or worse to say thank you to no one- makes no sense.
                When I think of Thanksgiving I think of lepers.  There’s the story of the ten lepers- and only one came back to thank Jesus- the rest went on their way- they found something more urgent or more important to do.  We so often let the urgent take the place of the most important.  The leper found a way to come back to pray.
But when I think of Thanksgiving I think of lepers, because about twenty years ago I met my first lepers- in South Korea.  These were people basically abandoned by family, and friends and left for dead by society, but the church was the only one to care for them.  Missionaries from the Presbyterian Church came to them and soothed their wounds, bandaged them, and ultimately care for them when no one else would, and now they care with the best and latest technology.  These lepers chanted the first chapter of Genesis for us- three of them had memorized the Bible all the way through out of gratitude to God.  They sang a song to us- I couldn’t understand much of what they said, but the word “komsanida”- “Thank you’ was said over and over.  They were grateful lepers for the church. 
                Yesterday I went up to the PC football game, and they had all the kids from Thornwell Home over.  A guy came up to us and said “hello.”  He had a big smile and he was with some friends who obviously liked him.  Our church had helped place him in Thornwell.  His father had abandoned him.  His mother was a drug dealer, and could not support him nor his brother and sister.  He was going to move into a trailer with his grandmother, but there were already ten people in the trailer.   Kenyon really was in an unsafe environment.  He went to Thornwell with his brother and sister.  We went to see them (as some of you did too) after they moved up there, and they were just so very grateful to be there.  When he came up to us yesterday I asked him how he was doing, and he smiled really big and said, “You know how I always wanted to play football?”  I said, “Yes.”  Well they moved me up from JV to Varsity, and because I am here I’m playing for Clinton High School.  We won last night and now I am playing in the upper state championship next week.  I think the reason he found us was so he could say “thank you.”  We are a blessed people. Thanksgiving is the oil that makes life run a bit smoother.  Thanksgiving is the prayer that is given to God.   It is good for us to Make a joyful noise and give thanks to God.