Sermon Transcript
I always look forward to Sunday morning and being here with all of you. I especially look forward to Sunday morning when we have the choir and orchestra with us. I especially, especially look forward to Sunday morning when it is our annual celebration, which we do once a year. Once a year we pause at the end of our fiscal year of ministry and look back on the last year and give thanks for what God has done the last year. And I especially, especially, especially, if I’m keeping track of those correctly, look forward to this morning because we’re not only celebrating the last year, we’re celebrating the last 85 years that this church has been together, as you have already heard.
But we rejoice that for 85 years we have taught the Bible, sung with one another, baptized those who put their faith in Christ, sent missionaries, made disciples, carried one another’s burdens, laughed together, cried together, reminded one another of the hope we have because of what Jesus did on our behalf. And we’ve done that for 85 years. It’s amazing. Praise God. Praise God that he has made it possible for us to continue that work for as long as we have.
And praise God for all the people over all those years that have dreamed and hoped and built and planned and sacrificed to make all of this possible for us today. There are previous generations, many previous generations, that volunteered, ran programs, led trips, invested in lives, built buildings, and we are the result of their efforts. We are standing on their shoulders. We wouldn’t be here in the way that we are if they hadn’t done what they did. You heard Mark on the video, which if you didn’t catch it, he came to the 2nd meeting of our church ever, 85 years ago, and he has been connected here ever since then, back in 1940.
And we have many others, not as long as Mark has been here, but many others who have been here for 70, 60, 50, 40, 30 years, which is incredible. It’s incredible really to be a part of anything for that many decades, and we’re grateful, grateful for our long history and every single person in it. I have only been here, only, for 9 and a half years, so there’s many of you who have seen much more than I have. You’ve seen more seasons of ministry, more highs and lows, but I can say I can say out of my 9+ years here, we have never been better. The energy, the life, the momentum, the health— it is the best we’ve been in 9 years in my estimation, uh, and many others because they tell me about it, which means we’re not slowing down.
In fact, we’re accelerating. As an 85-year-old, uh, we’ve grown every year since COVID our body of believers here. There’s been more of us, and I believe that we are growing because You guys have taken up the mantle to try to connect to one another in more significant ways. New people can find their people very quickly here, and those of us who have been around longer and already have our people, we are deepening those relationships with those around us. One, one data point on that is how long we hang out with each other on the patio after service.
Some of y’all stay on our patio all afternoon. Because you want to be together. That’s fantastic that that’s happening, and we give thanks. We look up to God who provided it all, and we say thank you. Thank you for the last 85 years, and thank you for what is happening today.
Our prayers are full of gratitude. If you haven’t been here the last month and a half or so, we have been teaching from the Psalms when and how to pray, because the Psalms are like a prayer book. It’s like a prayer journal. We read the prayers of others who lived long ago and learn from them how to pray. And if you’re familiar with the Psalms, you know that giving thanks is a common theme throughout them.
When people pray in the Bible, they say thank you all the time. It’s all the time, and that makes sense. Because in any relationship we should frequently express gratitude for the other person or other people, at least in every healthy relationship, we could say it that way, we will express thanks a lot. Husbands and wives should thank each other often, parents and children, roommates, teammates, coworkers, people you see at church, thank them all the time. In fact, The better you want a relationship to be, the more thanks you should express.
And if you want to wreck a relationship, just stop saying thank you altogether. By the way, big thanks to everyone who is helping to set up the lunch afterwards. You may not even be in here, but when you see them later, especially Lilia, give her a big thank you. Thomas and Arcadio, everyone who brought food, which is most of us, everyone who put up tents, arranged tables, it is done a ton of work to put this potluck together that we’re having later, so thank you.
Imagine if we didn’t say thank you. Imagine if we didn’t hear thank-yous from the people around us. Just take work as an example. What if the people on your work team never thanked you for anything? When you put in the extra hours, you think you did a good job.
You didn’t know if you could finish on time, but somehow it all came together, and you had, you know, at the last second of the deadline, you submit it, you release it, you launch it, you deliver it, and it works. It flies, in fact. It works great. You’re surprised you did that well, and no one says anything. It’s just silence.
Maybe they don’t complain, but they also don’t offer any gratitude. No acknowledgement of your efforts, no appreciation, just crickets after you worked really hard. If that happened, it would leave a little bit of a void in your heart. You may wonder, didn’t even anyone notice what I did? Does anyone even care?
Now, if that only happens one time, and the rest of the time you’re really thanked and appreciated, you’ll probably just move on without thinking much about it. But if it continues to happen, if your next project comes up and you work long hours again, submit it again, it flies again, same month, next thing, next thing, same month, same month, next thing, over and over, and you never receive any thanks, that will wear you down. You’ll feel discouraged even if you can’t really pinpoint why you feel discouraged. You may be irritable. To others because you weren’t appreciated and thanked.
And work isn’t the only place like that. We need recognition from those around us in all of our relationships. We need it at home, with our friends. If they don’t express thanks, it will erode the intimacy in the relationship. We will not be as close to them if they aren’t thanking us, and vice versa.
It is needed in any relationship for it to be healthy.
If we want our relationship with God to thrive, to make us feel alive, to provide us a sense of meaning, if we want that in our relationship with God, then we need to thank him often in our prayers, all the time, which is exactly what we see in the Psalms. And today we’re looking at one such prayer. It’s Psalm 100. If you have subtitles in your Bible, it may even say Psalm 100 is a prayer of thanksgiving, but Uh, if you noticed while Carrie was reading, the psalmist does not give thanks for a particular circumstance that worked out in his life, like his current days that are happening. He doesn’t— he doesn’t thank God like some other psalmists do.
He doesn’t thank God for escaping from his enemies. He doesn’t thank God for what we might thank God for— getting a new job, you know, finding a new relationship, church being here for 85 years— all of which, those are great things to give thanks for. That’s just not the content of this particular prayer, and it’s helpful that such a prayer is included in our models for prayer because this psalmist’s gratitude is connected to something deeper than just circumstances which may change. In other words, his prayer is a model for how we can express thanks to God really regardless of what’s happening in our lives. Even if we don’t get the job, even if our church hasn’t been here for 85 years, This prayer shows us how to be thankful and rejoice in those kinds of moments.
So as we study this Psalm, we will see why our author is thankful, what makes his thanksgiving possible, and his expectation for future thankfulness. Why he is thankful, what makes his thanksgiving possible, and his expectation for future thankfulness. So first, why he’s thankful. He’s included as God’s people. He’s thankful because he belongs to God.
God has adopted him, made him his own, gave him access. That’s why he’s thankful. That’s why he’s dancing down the street kind of singing happy. And he expresses this idea of inclusion in 2 different ways in his prayer. So verse 3, he says he’s part of God’s people.
Then in verse 4, he says he can enter the gates. He’s God’s people. He can enter the gates. We’ll look at those 2 ideas separately. So first, verse 3, he’s God’s people.
He says, know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. So the author knows to whom he belongs. He knows whose he is.
The God who numbered all the stars, The God who knows every atom in the universe, that God has brought the psalmist into his inner circle. He’s one of God’s people, and that terminology of God’s people or God saying to people, you are my people, my people, that phrasing which is used throughout the Old Testament is used to indicate that God will take care of them. That God will make a way for them. They’re blessed and highly favored because they are God’s people. I’ll give you a bunch of instances.
There’s about 100 of these in Scripture. We won’t cover that many, but here we go. Exodus 3. This is when Israel was still in slavery in Egypt. The Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.
I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a land that is good and broad, land flowing with milk and honey. Fast forward, 2 Samuel 3, the Lord promised David saying, by the hand of my servant David, I will save my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and the hand of all their enemies. 2 Samuel 7, I will appoint a place for my people Israel and plant them so they may dwell in their own— on their own and be disturbed no more, and violent men shall afflict them no more. 1 Kings 6, And the Lord will dwell among the children of Israel and not forsake my people. Joel 2, you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God who has dwelt— or dealt wondrously with you, and my people shall never be put to shame.
Zechariah 13, they will call upon my name and I will answer them. I will say, they are my people, and they will say, the Lord is my God. It’s over and over and over. Being part of God’s people means security, safety, provision, a future. If you belong to God, ultimately, eventually, in eternity if not before, everything will work out for you.
Everything that ever happens to you will be used for your good, even the bad stuff that happens to you, and there will be plenty of bad stuff. This isn’t everything is going to be roses and peaches till you get to heaven. No, there will be bad stuff. But what it means is, if you’re part of God’s people, is that bad stuff, instead of it ruining you in the end, it will serve to elevate you even further. The last chapter of our story, the last chapter of the story of our lives, is a chapter that will never end, that has already been written And it’s one where we rejoice over how God has turned all bad things that were meant for our ruin into our good.
That’s what it’s to be, to be part of God’s people. But being one of God’s people is not the only way he gets across this idea that he’s included with God, welcomed by God, wanted by God. The second way is that he can enter God’s gates with thanksgiving. He enters God’s gates with thanksgiving, which is a picture of access. It means he has the right gate code, the right passport.
His citizenship was granted. He can enter the gates to God’s city, to the eternal city. This isn’t just some city, it’s God’s eternal city. It’s what’s described at the end of Revelation chapter 21 as coming down out of heaven with a loud voice from the throne that says, behold, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have passed away. That’s the city that comes down that He can enter. Around that city Revelation again describes that there are gates around that city. From Revelation 22 we are told that the ones who can enter through through the gates are only those who have washed their robes, been forgiven, cleansed from their unrighteousness.
So not everyone can enter the city. Gates, the whole purpose of gates is to depict that some people are out and some people are in. But the psalmist understands that he can go in, and he gives thanks for it. That’s why he’s thankful. He’s God’s people.
He can enter. He’s included. Now, second, what makes his inclusion possible? How would he know that he can enter these gates? How can he be on the inside?
Why isn’t he on the outside? What makes his thanksgiving possible is the courtroom. Verse 4, he says, enter God’s courts with thanksgiving, his courts. So something happens in God’s courts that makes his thanksgiving possible. Courts obviously being a picture of judgment, verdict, sentencing, you know, the judge rules and whatever the outcomes— whatever that outcome is, that has caused his thanksgiving.
Enter his courts with thanksgiving. But that raises the question, what happened in the courtroom that can make him shout with praise? Why is he dancing in God’s courts? Who even dances with joy in a courtroom? Not everyone.
In fact, many don’t dance with joy in a courtroom. I’ll say from my extensive research watching crime dramas, there are 2 types of people really in those shows that celebrate in the presence of a judge. The first type of people who celebrates in a courtroom are those who have been acquitted of all charges. You know, they’re found not guilty. Those people are, of course, elated, especially— and we’ve probably seen some high-profile cases on TV, and maybe it was a very long trial, it goes on forever and ever, and then finally the prosecution and the defense rest their case and the jury goes to deliberate.
And I’m sure But for those defendants, while the jury deliberates, those minutes, hours, days as the jury decides their fate, that has to be the longest minutes, hours, days of their life, waiting to hear what the verdict is. But finally the moment comes, the jury comes back out, they notify the bailiff who tells the judge, and the judge says, not guilty. Of course those people are happy. Sometimes they were so overjoyed they collapse, right? Their knees give out, they hug their family, they may hug their lawyer.
Many of them have tears streaming down their face because they’re rejoicing because the jury believed there was at least a reasonable doubt, a reasonable doubt that they didn’t do what they were accused of doing. So of course they rejoice. But is that why this psalmist could give thanks in God’s courts? Would a jury look at him and say, we’re not totally sure you did it. There’s at least a reasonable doubt that you aren’t guilty.
Could the psalmist rejoice for that reason in God’s courts? No, because no one is without guilt in God’s courts. The psalmist is guilty. God’s people are guilty. In fact, the story of the Israelites— and this is, this is one reason why you might give the Bible some credibility, okay?
One reason why you might want to consider believing the Bible if you don’t. The Israelites, who were the ones who wrote down most of their own history, which then became our scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, the Bible— you might think if Israel wrote Israel’s history they would color themselves in a positive light, make themselves look better than they really were, but they don’t do that. In fact, a major theme in all those writings is how badly and how often they messed up, how guilty they are. For all the positive references of how God is going to take care of his people in the Old Testament, there are just as many references that detail his people’s failures. So for instance, in Jeremiah 2:32, God says, my people have forgotten me days without number.
Jeremiah 5:7, how could I pardon you? God asked. Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are not gods. Or Isaiah 1, God says, children I have reared. That’s talking about Israel.
I’ve reared and brought up children, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not understand. Seems he’s saying that oxes and donkeys are more faithful than Israel is. So maybe where the phrase dumb as an ox comes from, right there, Isaiah 1.
Ezekiel 20 records, they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me. And then even Jesus, Matthew 15, he says, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. The story of God’s people is, which they wrote down themselves, is one of ongoing guilt. If they were in a courtroom, they’re the ones that plead guilty. They’re like, yep, I did it, and actually you missed a few facts, so let me tell you about some more stuff that I did.
They know that they’re caught red-handed. They know that if they stood on their own record, if the prosecution rolled tape of their lives. The evidence against them would be overwhelming. So, for these people who plead guilty and then the verdict comes down, how do we expect that to go?
It’s not normally a cause to rejoice.
That’s probably not why the psalmist is excited to be in God’s courtroom.
But maybe he’s in the other group of people that celebrate in the courtroom, at least in TV drama shows. The second group of people who jump for joy when verdicts are read are the victims if their assailant gets punished. So people who have been really wronged, they’re not on trial themselves, they’re just watching. The one who hurt them is on trial. They come to court and they’re hoping to see the one who wronged them receive punishment.
If they see justice done, if they see evil being held accountable, then they celebrate, right? Because the bad guys didn’t get away with it. Not that punishing bad guys puts everything back together in the victim’s life, but it’s something, and it’s important. So they give thanks. They thank God.
They thank the judge and jury. That makes sense. It’s a totally valid reason to celebrate in a courtroom. But is that why the psalmist would rejoice in God’s courts? Is that what could be going on with him?
He’s glad the guilty people who hurt him are getting their just due.
Not likely, because this is God’s judgment seat. These are God’s courts where everything that everyone has ever done in the history of the world will be revealed. And every evil that has ever occurred will be stamped out. So if the psalmist is in those courts with his enemies, and his enemy— and yes, his enemies are guilty, and I might rejoice that they are punished, but then he’s guilty too. Yes, his enemies committed an injustice against him, but he’s committed injustices against others.
So yes, his enemies are in trouble under judgment, but he’d be in trouble too. If God stamps out all evil, all of it, every little single drop of evil that’s ever happened, if God’s going to squash all of that, what’s going to happen to him?
He’s going to go down with the ship. He will receive and his enemies will receive what they both deserve. So that’s not a cause for rejoicing, certainly not loud shouts of joy, dancing in the street kind of rejoicing. So why is the psalmist rejoicing in God’s courts? If he’s not innocent, if his record says he should be punished with all the evil that’s being punished around him, why is he rejoicing?
What he must be alluding to here, must be, really the only reason he could rejoice in God’s courts is a concept seen from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible. And it’s the idea of a substitute. A substitute stands in the place of the guilty so that the guilty may be released from their guilt and go free. In the Old Testament law, they literally had a scapegoat, which was an actual goat. They did this once a year.
Then they would— like we have an annual celebration once a year— they would symbolically lay all the sins of the nation onto this goat goat and then send it off into the wilderness. That’s Leviticus 16. It’s symbolizing that their sins are carried away. They go free because the scapegoat stood in their place. And that whole ceremony where they sent the goat off was meant to foreshadow who would come to eventually really take their sins away.
The, the reason we don’t do the scapegoat ceremony anymore is because the real scapegoat came, that Jesus came and really took our sins away. Isaiah makes that explicit. Isaiah 53, he says, one day, one day there will come one who is pierced for our transgressions. He was— he’s crushed for our iniquities. Punishment upon him will bring us peace.
By his wounds we will be healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. We have turned each one to his own way, and the Lord has laid not on us on him the iniquity of us all. It’s substitution, someone in our place taking our guilt so that we can be free. And if we see someone do that for us, I would venture to guess that we would rejoice.
When the verdict comes down, when we know the punishment will be severe, maybe the guards come to take us away, but someone stands up and says, punish me instead. Let these people go free. That’s a reason to rejoice in a courtroom, even if you are guilty, even if you plead guilty. Now you get to go free? Yes, that would be a reason to rejoice.
You may remember, many of us probably had to read it in school, the book by Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities. You remember this? You don’t have to say whether you did or not. If you If you haven’t read Tale of Two Cities, or— I’m not going to turn you in to your English teacher, it’s been a long time ago. If you haven’t read Tale of Two Cities, I’m sorry, spoilers lay ahead.
Okay, and I don’t want to ruin the ending for you for such a classic, but in my defense, Tale of Two Cities came out in 1859, so you’ve had 166 years to read it. On your own. And I feel like that’s probably sufficient time to wait before I spoil the end for you publicly, but just be warned, spoilers are ahead. Okay, Tale of Two Cities, set in the French Revolution, lots of upheaval. People are sentenced to death really just because of what economic class they belong to.
It’s a mess. It was a nasty revolution. Story’s fictional, but the setting is real. So 3, 3 main characters: Charles, Sydney, and Lucy. Charles, Sydney, and Lucy.
Sydney is a man. Today that name might go either way, but Sydney is a man in the story. And Charles and Sydney are both in love with Lucy. They both— Charles and Sydney want to court and marry Lucy, but Lucy chooses Sydney, not Charles. But rather than being bitter about that, Charles still loves Lucy, and he wants her to have the best life that she can.
And so Charles pledges that he would do anything for Lucy, even though she’s with Sidney. He’s like, I’ll still do anything for you. And Charles gets an opportunity to do anything for her, to fulfill his pledge, when Sidney is arrested and sentenced to the guillotine. So Sidney is sitting in jail, He is to be beheaded the next day. Less than 24 hours later, he’ll be dead.
He’s never going to see Lucy again, and Lucy is, of course, upset. So out of his love for Lucy, Charles sneaks into the jail and he switches places with Sidney. Charles and Sidney happen to look remarkably alike somehow, so no one notices the switch has been made. Sidney sneaks out of town He reunites with Lucy, and Charles goes to the guillotine in Sidney’s place. Charles dies by beheading, and as he dies, he has this vision, kind of, of Sidney and Lucy together in the future with their child.
And then basically the story ends. So we don’t see much of Sidney and Lucy’s life together, but we can guess how they felt. We could assume every time they look at their kid, every time they look at each other, they must be thinking, we wouldn’t have any of this without Charles. I mean, Sidney probably says, the guillotine was meant for me, but Charles substituted himself. In their nightly prayers with their child, how often do you think Sidney and Lucy said, Lord, thank you for Charles?
It would be all the time. They would rejoice all the time. Whenever Sidney thought back to sitting in that jail cell where the substitution was made, he would give thanks.
And that’s why the psalmist rejoiced in God’s courts. You know, the psalmist is actually guilty, not like Sidney. He’s not really guilty, right? He’s just disfavored by those by power. But the psalmist is truly guilty.
He would be sentenced fairly. But then someone takes the sentence for him. God provides a substitute. Jesus Christ, in his place on the cross, takes the punishment that the psalmist deserves so that he is free from wrath and condemnation forever. That’s why he rejoices in God’s courts.
Do you? When you think of the judgment of God, When you think of being in God’s courtroom and you know you’re guilty, you’ve pled guilty, and you’re thinking about you in that setting, yourself in that setting, do you rejoice? Do you give thanks? We’re meant to. We’re meant to rejoice when we think of God’s courts.
Enter his courts with thanksgiving, verse 4, because that is the setting, that courtroom is meant to make us remember Christ’s substitution in our place. And if we do, if we see Him in our place, we will be dancing in the streets. Christians believe in grace, G-R-A-C-E, God’s riches at Christ’s expense. G-R-A-C-E, God’s riches at Christ’s expense. We get all the riches, that Christ deserves, His future, His favor.
We receive all of that, and we receive all of that at His expense, of Him on the cross in our place. That’s why the psalmist rejoices, because of the substitute in the courtroom. Now finally and quickly, the psalmist’s expectation for future thankfulness is a forever celebration. It’s verse 5, for the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, His faithfulness to all generations. All generations.
So what we have in Christ will never end. Our joyful noise will never end. Our gladness will never end. Our singing in His presence will never end. Our thanksgiving in His courts will never end.
The gates of the eternal city will always be open to us. That’s our future, thankful forever. That’s where we’re headed. So, on this day when we celebrate the past, and we really celebrate the last 85 years that have been amazing, praise God for the last 85 years, but they are nothing compared to our future. Our future is endless 85s in the presence of Jesus.
Who rescued us by substituting Himself for us.
Let’s pray. Father, we do give thanks in Your courts, and we are grateful, Lord, that we always have Your work on our behalf to give thanks for. Even if You do nothing else, Lord, You have done enough because You have freed us from wrath and condemnation. To an eternal home where we will celebrate and give thanks forever and ever. We pray those things in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
