We turn first to the New Testament, to Romans chapter 11, reading the last few verses, beginning at verse 33, then on into chapter 12, and then turning to Psalm 100 for our Old Testament reading. So first, Romans 11, beginning with verse 33. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out for who has made known the mind of the Lord or who has become his counselor or who is first given to him and it shall be repaid to him for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And now to the 100th Psalm. A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him and bless his name for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and his truth endures to all generations. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God abides forever. We turn in the preaching of God's Word to Psalm 100, a psalm of thanksgiving, a psalm for giving thanks to God. And I hope that you think often Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, of your Gospel duty of giving thanks to God, that your life, to use the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, those three things that are necessary for us to live and die in the joy of knowing Christ. First, how great our sins and miseries are. Secondly, we need to know how we can be delivered from all of our sins and miseries. And then that third thing, that life of gratitude to God, how we are to order our lives and thankfulness to God for so great a salvation. And this is really the theme of Psalm 100. And it's the theme that I'd like to press upon all of our minds and consciences this morning, the gospel duty of thanksgiving. You know, we as a society, as a culture, we often give thanks, don't we? We like to say thank you. Maybe it's something we don't think much about. Maybe it's something you don't think so much about. Saying thank you, when someone opens the door, it's the polite and the customary thing to do. You know, the stakes are raised when someone does something much kinder, something much more intentionally good for us, good to us. Think about perhaps an expensive wedding gift. Some of you perhaps have received something of that nature, a generous gift around the time of your wedding. And the impulse then, and it's a good impulse, it's customary in our society, then to respond with a thoughtful thank you note, a genuine expression of gratitude. And you can see here how the stakes are rising, that commensurate to the degree of kindness and the quality of the gift that you've received, they're out to rise somewhat of a commensurate, of a proportional thanksgiving rising up out of your heart. Perhaps even for some of you, someone has risked their life to save yours. We think of those first responders who often put their own life and limb at risk in order to serve others and even be willing to lay down their lives for others. And perhaps you have experienced that degree of kindness and human love. And certainly there ought to be a conscious, lifelong gratitude in that sense. But we have to raise the stakes even much higher than simply the ordinary, customary things that we do to express our thanksgiving. What kind of thanksgiving is appropriate to the triune God who has given us everything, every breath, every bite of food, every good night's rest, every beautiful sunrise that you've ever seen, every delight of comfort of family and friends, and even more, every sin forgiven child of God, every grace necessary to make it to heaven, and every delight of communion with the Triune God. What kind of Thanksgiving is appropriate in this case? Again, we cannot repay the Lord for so great a salvation. But certainly, Psalm 100 gives us a window for the kind of gratitude that ought to spring up deep within our hearts. And if it's true on a human level, there ought to be a degree of giving thanks commensurate to the kindness given. Certainly for us, redeemed and loved by God, ought to flow streams of deep well of thanksgiving to God for His great love for us. And this is the window that Psalm 100 gives us into a life of thanksgiving and gratitude to God. It is very simply a psalm of thanksgiving. that underscores our Christian duty of Thanksgiving, not merely to perhaps many of you gathering this Thursday with family and friends to enjoy turkey and dressing together. But Psalm 100 calls us to much more, a life of thanksgiving and gratitude to God, that controlling motive for all of our life and all of our obedience. So we seek to meditate and study this Psalm together. And in this, I want you to consider how you could grow in thanksgiving to God, how your life, even this week, might overflow with more gratitude and thanksgiving to God, and even how you could put to death those remaining sins that are so deep in all of our hearts of ingratitude, complaining, even discontentment. Psalm 100 calls us again to give thanks to God for all of his benefits to us. I want to very simply consider with you in our meditation our great duty of Thanksgiving. What is Thanksgiving and what does it look like? What is thankfulness to God? And then the reasons, the abundant reasons for Thanksgiving that the psalmist gives us in this psalm. And then lastly, considering that important question, how you and I can lead lives of greater thankfulness to God. So first, the the gospel duty of Thanksgiving. What what exactly is Thanksgiving? What is thankfulness? There was an old Puritan named Thomas Goodwin who wrote a discourse. called a discourse on thankfulness, which is due to God for His benefits and blessings. Long sermon title. And he said that thankfulness is a free rendering to God the glory of His goodness, principally to the end that we glorify it and testify our love to Him. Thankfulness is a free rendering to God the glory of His goodness. principally to the end that we glorify His goodness, glorify His grace to us, and that in this we testify of our love to Him. And I think that's a very helpful definition, a very helpful way to think about Thanksgiving. It's a free rendering to God. As we read this psalm together, and I hope you notice this, As we read the psalm together, there's nothing compulsory here. There's nothing half-hearted in the type of thanksgiving and gratitude that the psalmist offers to God. Make a joyful shout to the Lord all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with thanksgiving. There is an exuberant cry of jubilation springing up in the heart of the psalmist, even as he calls his brothers and sisters, his fellow Israelites, and not only the nation of Israel, but even all of the nations, to gather in thanksgiving to God. There's nothing half-hearted here. There's a free rendering to God. the glory due to His name. There's a sense of overflowing jubilation in the goodness of God. This is, again, true of our experience, isn't it? Maybe you've been driving in the mountains. Some of you enjoy doing that. I certainly do. Just driving, in fact, this week in the mountains of western North Carolina. At one point, the vista just opened in front of me, and it was breathtaking to see the grandeur of God's creation. And there wells up in our hearts the delight in even these views of nature and creation and the type of wonder and awe that we ought to express. The psalmist lifts his eyes to God, to the Lord and giver of every good and perfect gift, the God of infinite glory. and out of His heart overflows this free rendering to God. Verse 4, entering into the Lord's gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise, being thankful to Him and blessing His name, this is a free rendering to God. It comes bubbling from deep wells of gratitude for the Lord's kindness and generosity to the psalmist. And it comes at the end of a group of psalms in which there's been a building. This is sort of a really not sort of it is a climax to the psalms that come before it. This cry of jubilation of free rendering to God of Thanksgiving builds on particularly Psalm 96 through 99. It's as if we're ascending a mountain for that grand view of God's majesty and His holiness and His goodness. In fact, if you read those Psalms 96 through 99 carefully, you see that there's a an alternation between God's splendor and His rule over all things, and His holiness. It's as if now Psalm 100 comes as a final doxology on the tail end of these other psalms, exalting God for His rule and reign over the nations, and His infinite holiness. And now Psalm 100 flows forth, the psalmist just bursts forth with jubilation to God. for His holiness, His rule over all things, for His goodness, and for His grace. It comes freely, a free and cheerful rendering to God. And this is the way that you and I are to order our Thanksgiving, are to think about it. It's not a compulsory duty, not something that we enter into half-hearted. But because of all the Lord's gracious benefits to us, this kind of worship comes welling up deep within our hearts. We have freely received, we freely give. We remember the words of David in 1 Chronicles 29, words of gratitude, of free gratitude to God. Now therefore, our God, this is 1 Chronicles 29, 13, as offerings have been gathered, material has been gathered for the building of the temple, 1 Chronicles 29.13, Now therefore, our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name. But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from you, and of your own we have given you. A free and a cheerful rendering to God. David in 1 Chronicles 29 is not thinking of earning anything from the Lord. He's not thinking of a sort of debit and credit exchange. That if I put in this much worship or this kind of thanksgiving, I'll give something out of the Lord. No. He looks at the grace and the abundant kindness of God to him. And his thanksgiving flows out. He acknowledges that no one can make a debtor of the God of infinite glory and grace. Our thanksgiving arises as freely and cheerfully we have received, freely God has given to us, and freely we respond with thanksgiving. I'm reminded often of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 4. I love to think on these words. These questions that strike deep into our hearts. Who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you have not received it? All that we are and have comes from the Lord. Our thanksgiving to Him ought to be that which rises freely, willingly, and cheerfully in our hearts. Making a joyful shout to the Lord. serving the Lord with gladness, coming with singing into his holy presence, entering his gates with thanksgiving and blessing his holy name. This is a call to all of the nations. And there's a more than a hint here of the future expectation of gospel blessing for the nations through our Lord Jesus Christ. You see the one and true living God, Jehovah, the one who is worthy of this kind of thanksgiving. He's not a provincial deity. He's not a niche idol or a local deity. He's the God of all the earth. and worship from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Exuberant Thanksgiving to Him is the only kind of suitable worship to the one true and living God. This is a universal duty of Thanksgiving to God. Not merely to make a list once a year, perhaps, around Thanksgiving time of the things that you're grateful for. Not merely gathering with family and friends to enjoy a fine meal together, but thinking daily of the Lord and giver of every good and perfect gift. The one who, as I said a few moments ago, has granted us every breath that we've ever taken, every bite of food, every good thing. and particularly for all in Christ, the forgiveness of all of our sins and the hope of glory. Certainly, a free rendering to him for the glory of his goodness is our only reasonable service of worship, is the only thing that would make sense for the children of God, those who have received his goodness and faithfulness. Indeed, make a joyful shout to the Lord all you lands and enter now into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. The psalmist doesn't end there, of course, as he calls us to worship and he calls us to this free rendering to God for his benefits to us. He gives us abundant reasons for that Thanksgiving. He calls upon us, and again, the words of Goodwin, to give to God the glory due to his name, to the glory of his goodness. He gives us abundant reasons in this psalm for our Thanksgiving. This is not emotion flying off the page that's not grounded in truth. There are solid and objective truths that ground our gratitude to God. And very simply here, really on two grounds, we are to give thanks to God. First, we give thanks to Him, we worship Him, because He is God, and He is God alone. And secondly, because He is good. Very simple, yet very profound reasons for our gratitude. First, that the Lord, know that the Lord, He is God, verse three. There is one living and true God. This is the heart of biblical worship, to acknowledge the one living and true God. All the gods of the nations are idols. They cannot hear, they cannot smell. Psalm 115 tells us the futility of all the idols of the nations and exalts the glory of the one true God. Psalm 115. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory because of Your mercy and because of Your truth Our God is in heaven verse 3 He does whatever he pleases their idols idols of the nations are silver and gold the work of men's hands They have mouths, but they do not speak eyes. They have but they do not they do not see they have ears But they do not hear noses. They have but they do not smell they have hands, but they do not handle feet They have but they do not walk nor do they mutter through their throat those who make them are like them So is everyone who trusts in them. Unlike the idols of the nations, who are nothing, who have no power, no grandeur, no majesty, Israel is called to know that the Lord, He is God. That there is a God in heaven who rules and reigns over all things. A God of immense glory and majesty. Infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in all of His perfections. And not only that He is, that He exists, but also that He made us. You see, this truth of the God who sits on this throne, the one true and living God, it's not divorced from our own experience of His glory and of His kindness to us. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. He's our maker. If there is indeed one true and living God, then it follows as the psalmist proclaims here that he's our maker, that he's the one who formed us from our mother's wounds, that he knitted us together in his sovereignty over us. And therefore, we make a joyful shout to him. Therefore, we serve him. Therefore, we worship him. You think of God as your creator, as your king, as the one who has granted you everything, natural gift, spiritual blessing, God is your maker, your king, the one who's sovereign over you. There's actually no such thing as self-made men and self-made women. God is our maker. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves, forming us by his hand. We are his sheep. We are his people and the sheep of his pastor. You see, the psalmist is gradually building here. He's exalting God as the one true and living God. Know that the Lord, he is God. that he is our maker, but even more, that he's our shepherd, that he is the king of all the ages, yet also the one who kindly and tenderly shepherds his people, giving to us abundantly all that we need, watching over us, pitying us, protecting us, providing for us. And our hearts and minds ought to immediately run to our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who proclaimed of himself, I am the good shepherd, and I lay down my life for the sheep." This is the ground, this is the reason for your thanksgiving to God, for your joyful gratitude to Him, that He is God, that He made you, and that in Christ He is your shepherd, the one who watches over you, tenderly cares for you, and will bring you to glory. Know that the Lord, He is God. This is the ground of our thanksgiving and our worship. A right view of God, knowing that there is One who sits on His throne, infinite in majesty and splendor. This, in fact, is what causes joyful thanksgiving to rise up deep within our hearts. Again, this is not emotion flying off the page. It's not uncalled for jubilation. When you have a proper knowledge of God according to His Word. This is the kind of worship described here. that ought to flow forth. When you know that the Lord He is God, that He's made you, that you belong to Him, that He defines everything about you, He made you in His image and for Himself, this then calls forth the kind of thanksgiving here in the psalm. But we're not done yet. As we worship and rejoice in the knowledge of the Lord as God, we're not done yet. There's the pinnacle in verse 5 of the reason for our thanksgiving, that which undergirds a life of gratitude to God. Not only the truth that He is God and God alone, not only that He made us and formed us, that we are His, that we are the sheep of His pasture, But the pinnacle is, in fact, the glory of His goodness. Goodwin was right when he said that thanksgiving to God is a free rendering to Him the glory of His goodness. It is the goodness and the bounty of God that particularly calls forth our thanksgiving. Not merely remembering His work of creation and His work of providence over us, as vital as those things are, but looking to His hand in redemption, even His goodness in our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. What's the pinnacle of the psalm? Verse 5. For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations. We sing often Psalm 100, the rendition that begins, all people that on earth do dwell. In fact, we'll close with that here in a few moments. But I love that last line, the beginning of the last verse, we've been singing it, being called to worship, to all people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice, and all the rest, as we're called into the presence of God, to give exuberant praise to Him. And then the last verse, for why? What's the pinnacle? What is that which undergirds all of our thanksgiving and gratitude to God? It is His goodness. For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations. The fact that our God indeed is God, He sits on the throne, but He is good to us. Child of God, has He not been good to you? and calling you from death to life, and giving you every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in His Son, and forgiving all of your sins, even as we read from Psalm 103 a few moments ago, removing your sins from you as far as the east is from the west, granting you the adoption as sons and daughters to His family, granting you communion with Him and with His body, the church, giving you the hope of glory, of life everlasting, It is the goodness and the bounty of God that calls forth our thanksgiving to Him. As you thank the Lord, certainly thank and praise Him for His majesty, for His work of creation, for His work of providence, but particularly, particularly think on His goodness in saving you, in the blessing of redemption, in His mercy that has said that steadfast love and everlasting mercy, that covenant mercy, that despite your love that ebbs and flows and your obedience that is so often half-hearted and weak, that the Lord's mercy is steadfast. That He holds you in His favor. He's promised to be with you to forgive your sins and to bring you home to glory. His truth endures. We have the sure promises of the Gospel that we rest on. because of God's immutable and good character, that he's good for his word, that despite our weakness and wanderings and sins, that he remains good, that his mercy is indeed everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations. All of these truths of the Lord's goodness displayed so wondrously in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you're struggling today, to really know the goodness and the mercy of God. Where do you need to go? Perhaps even even this week, you've experienced loss and sadness and hardship. Your life is busy and you're worn and tired. Where can you go? What do you need to meditate on, even as you think about your duty to God? you need to go afresh to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, his person and his glorious work. Where do you really understand and ultimately understand the goodness and the mercy of God? But in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, God's truth and justice upheld there and his goodness and mercy granted to sinners. What is it that that breaks through the deep shell of unthankfulness and ingratitude and complaining that so often seeps in on our hearts that so often that that acts like dead weight when we want to worship and give thanks to God? What is it that we need? It is a fresh to run to the cross of Calvary. and there see the goodness and the mercy of God for our souls on display, and the glory of His goodness. This is what calls forth Thanksgiving. Glad-hearted Thanksgiving to God, and entering into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise, through our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who is Himself the way in to the gates. of the Lord into the house of the Lord and into his holy courts, and in fact, not only into those out outside gates, but even into the holy of holies, the one whom Hebrews calls the new and living way by whom we go to the father, the one who is himself the way, the truth and the life who brings us to God. This is what grounds our thanksgiving to the Lord. What are some ways, even in which this week, as you meditate on Psalm 100, and as you prayerfully desire to grow in thanksgiving and gratitude to God, what are some ways in which you might increase, in which you might put these truths to work in your life by the grace and power of God's Spirit? Well, first, I've already alluded to it. First, you need to meditate seriously. Meditate seriously on what you deserve, and what you've been given on the disparity between what you deserve and what you have been given. You see, thanksgiving to God and gratitude to God grows up best in gospel soil and the grace and goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ. You need to remember often the uncomfortable truth of what we actually deserve. Isn't this the root of so much of our ingratitude and our slowness to give God thanks? We think that we're owed something. We think somehow by in our fallen nature. That God owes us more than we've been given, but I remind you, brothers and sisters, of what it is that we deserve. We deserve hell and the fires of God's wrath and judgment. So you see, gospel Thanksgiving, this delight of giving gratitude and thanksgiving to God is far more than It's far more than viewing life as a glass half full or half empty, that sort of human sense of thinking about gratitude. Just view life, you'll hear some people say, just view life as a glass half full rather than half empty. See, the gospel does much more, does much more in teaching us and calling us to gratitude than that. The gospel teaches us first that what we actually deserve is a glass full of the foaming wrath of God against our sin. That we deserve nothing but the fire of hell and God's wrath against us forever. Yet that wrath has been poured out on our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who made propitiation for us, in which we see God's goodness and mercy and truth. And in its place, we've been given Not merely an empty cup, but a cup full of every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. Again, communion with God, union with Christ, adoption of sons and daughters, the sealing of the spirit and the sure hope of our inheritance yet to come. Think on what you deserve. Yet what God in his kindness and in his goodness has given you in its place, every spiritual blessing in Christ. And on top of that, for so many of us, bounty upon bounty, gratitude to God ought to well up deep in the soil of the gospel as we think on the disparity between what we think we deserve. Yeah, what God in his kindness, what we actually deserve by nature and what God in its place has given us in his son. Perhaps today you're seeking to kill discontentment and ingratitude, perhaps this week there rather than gratitude and joyful Thanksgiving to God, there's there's been deep ingratitude to God, complaining and even a temptation toward bitterness, to becoming bitter against the one who is God and who sits on his throne and who is truly good. How do you kill the sin of ingratitude and complaining? Look again to the goodness of God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Also remember, as I reminded you a few moments ago, the sovereign disposition of God as our Heavenly Father. You see His goodness and the way in which He gives you everything that you are and everything that you have, every gift and every grace, every relationship, everything that you have, everything that you are. And seek out of that, out of that goodness and generosity of God then, to give. to give to God, to respond, not seeking to earn His favor, not seeking to earn His goodness, but rather, based on the mercies of God, as we read from Romans 12, present your body, a living sacrifice to God. This is your reasonable service of worship. Seek to offer to God all that you are and all that you have, your body, your mind, your affections, even your time and your money, your energies to the work of the kingdom, you'll find that giving and giving generously to others, even in the midst of your own pain and even in the midst of your own sacrifice, often is one of the tools that God uses by His Holy Spirit to kill ingratitude deep in our hearts and to make us a more thankful people. to open up our hearts, to kill the remaining ingratitude deep within and to make us a thankful and a giving people. Give generously of what God has first given to you. And then lastly, the whole point of the song is that worship fuels our gratitude, that the more we sing praise to God, the more we reflect on His grandeur as God alone, and the more of His tender goodness to us, the more we will worship Him and sing His praise, and the more our gratitude to Him will be fueled. As it were, don't wait until you feel like it, but remember that worship fuels your gratitude. The Church Father Augustine said long ago, Don't think of fainting in your praise of Him. Your praise of Him is like food. The more you praise Him, the more you acquire strength, and He whom you praise becomes the more sweet. And even in the midst of sadness and tears that even some of you have experienced even this past week, give thanks to God. Lift high His name. Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all of you. Sing praise to God. And by the grace of the Spirit, what you will find is that God works greater gratitude deep in our hearts the more we give to Him the glory due to His name. That you're here gathered in under His name today to sing His praise, to give Him worship. And this is what fuels gratitude. for the glory of his name. Again, good one, to exalt the glory of his goodness and to testify of our love to him. Indeed, let us, brothers and sisters, enter into the Lord's gates with thanksgiving, into his courts with praise. Let us learn to be thankful to him and to bless his name. May God bless his word to our hearts for Jesus' sake. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we indeed are thankful to you. We have entered into your gates with thanksgiving through our Lord Jesus Christ, remembering your kindness to our souls and Lord, we pray for. the work of your spirit to remove all that is displeasing in our hearts of ingratitude and selfishness. Teach us, rather than complaining, to give our worship to you, to indeed serve you, and even to come into your presence with singing. Teach us to be those who worship and serve you from the heart. Work in us, Lord. We confess our sin of ingratitude and complaining to you. Give us the grace and power of your Holy Spirit. Lift our eyes to heaven, to our Lord Jesus Christ, to you, triune God, in all of your glory and splendor, and teach us indeed to sing the glory of your goodness, because you are good. Your mercy is everlasting. and your truth endures to all generations. We pray all these things in the blessed name of Jesus Christ. Amen. And go with the blessing of our triune God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. Amen.