Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving (2)

Psalm 100

Several homemakers wrote the following to be thankful for:

-For automatic dishwashers because they make it possible for us to get out of the kitchen before the family comes back in for their after-dinner snacks.

-For husbands who attack small repair jobs around the house because they usually make them big enough to call in the professionals.

-For children who put away their things & clean up after themselves. They’re such a joy you hate to see them go home to their own parents

-For teenagers because they give parents an opportunity to learn a second language.

-For Smoke alarms because they let you know when the turkey’s done.

This morning we are examining Psalm 100. We are studying five THANKSGIVING COMMANDS:

1- “Shout for the JOY to the LORD” (Armenian sermon)

2- “SERVE the LORD with GLADNESS.”

Now listen carefully. The Bible is not saying serve Nerses, or serve the Church or the organization. Serve the LORD.

Jesus taught us to be his hands and feet. He taught us that if we serve any of those broken or fallen people, any “little” ones, we would be serving the Lord. “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matt 25:40)

Now Lord can use the church, or Nerses, or an organization to reach those. We need to remind each other that whatever we do in the church or if Badveli asks you for something, we should be serving the LORD.

Sometimes I see some of you serve out of obligation, or fear of guilt, or shame, (amot e, badvelin ouzets, it is embarrassing to refuse, Badveli asked).

Or sometimes we serve to show to others how well we can do certain jobs; others can not do like me. I have the best recipe; I know how to organize things.

We need to be thankful for our servers. We have many servers in our church. Lately many of you did wonderful jobs in the food festival. I need to remind all of you, including me that we served the LORD, and not Calvary Church. We served the Lord and not Badveli Nerses.

3- The Third command is: “Come Before Him with Joyful songs.”

We need to discipline ourselves that despite problems we can still have the JOY of the LORD. Did you realize the emphasis on the word JOY in all these verses. “Shout with joy, serve with gladness, come before him with joyful songs…”

Do you remember what I said in the Armenian sermon about the Pilgrims? Their situation was not very well, but they learned to say thank you with joy.

Today’s NT lectionary reading comes from John 6.

²⁵When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"

²⁶Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill., ²⁷Do not work for food that spoils but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

We need to say thank you with joy, with joyful songs. We will celebrate today the Lord’s Table. Jesus is giving us the “food that endures to eternal life.”

4- The fourth Command: “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.” Knowing God is very important. In Hebrew: Daaet Elohim. In the Biblical understanding, to know is to have an intimate relationship. It means to vibrate together. This is a process that will never end. My knowledge of God is through Jesus Christ. I want to be like Him. In that process, we learn that we are made by Him. It is amazing how God made us. Each of us is different. Last week I said God is pre-eminent. Because He created us. He is above everything and we belong to Him. We read in Psalm 145:10

¹⁰ All you have made will praise you, O LORD;
       your saints will extol you.

In the process of knowing God we learn that we are created in His image; imago dei. This means His creation is continuing our lives, my life. He is not done with us. God is transforming our lives day by day to be like Jesus. In addition, He is giving us the qualities He has- loving, creating, imagining.

In the process of knowing Him, we learn that He is the Shepherd and we are the sheep. He is the Creator and I am a creature.

5- The fifth Command: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving
       and his courts with praise;
       give thanks to him and praise his name.”

Now in the OT, the Temple represented the presence of God. In the NT, our bodies are the Temple of God. God is everywhere. This means we need to enter wherever we go, and do whatever we do with thanksgiving. In our homes, schools, workplaces, entertainments, in our driving, we need to be thankful.

As I said earlier, it is easy to thank God when things are going the way we want. But we need to understand that He is our shepherd, and we are the sheep in all circumstances. This thanksgiving there will be many homes where one chair will be empty at the dinner table because a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, was killed in the war. Can we learn to thank God in these circumstances? Here is a tough question:

- Are you thankful for things, or thankful in all things?

God has His ways to talk with us. His ways are not our ways. Therefore, learn to be thankful when you enter His gates, I mean everywhere, anytime, as much as you can. Thank Him not only for things you receive, thank Him for His presence in your life.

@ (Dietrich Bonheoffer’s story)

Let me ask some though questions before we approach to Lord’s Table.

-What if we never saw another flower bloom because we grumbled when God sent rain? -What if we do not feel that God loves and cares for us because we failed in loving and caring for others? -What if we took God and His message away from our lives because we wouldn’t listen to His messenger?

Read Psalm 103:10-12

¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve
       or repay us according to our iniquities.

¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
       so great is his love for those who fear him;

¹² as far as the east is from the west,
       so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Let us approach the Table with repentance and humility. Let us bring our sins to the Table. Jesus is the master. He will lead us to a new life, a new beginning.

Amen

@ (Dietrich Bonheoffer)

Dietrich Bonheoffer, a German pastor imprisoned in 1943 for his political and Christian opposition to the Nazi regime, understood thanksgiving. For two years, he was imprisoned at times the war raging all around him. His cell wall was struck by collateral damage, the window was blown out and he endured the miserable could German winter for days on end. On the day of sentencing, he conducted a service for the other prisoners. One of those prisoners, an English officer who survived, wrote these words:

Bonheoffer always seemed to me to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident, and profound gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive... He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real and always near... On Sunday, April 8, 1945, Pastor Bonhoeffer conducted a little service of worship and spoke to us in a way that went to the heart of all of us. He found just the right words to express the spirit of our imprisonment, and the thoughts and resolutions it had brought us. He had hardly ended his last prayer when the door opened and two civilians entered. They said, "Prisoner Bonheoffer, come with us." That had only one meaning for all prisoners--the gallows. We said good-bye to him. He took me aside [and whispered in my ear]: "This is the end; but for me it is the beginning of life." The next day he was hanged in Flossenburg.