1. Worship the LORD with Joy (verses 1-2)
2. Because He is God (verse 3).
3. Come to the LORD with Thanks (verse 4)
4. Because He is Good (verse 5).

This week, on Thursday, we will celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday that all Biblically minded Christians can embrace entirely. It’s a day when we as a nation pause to give thanks.

The history of Thanksgiving can be traced back to the days of the Pilgrims, when a small group of English settlers established Plymouth Colony in 1620. Early colonial life was difficult to say the least. Food was scarce. Mortality was high. There were dangers from the Indians. We don’t exactly know when the first “Thanksgiving” day was, but there were occasional days set aside for expressing gratitude to God, acknowledging the kindness of God to sustain those in the colony. At times, even the Native Americans were invited to the harvest feasts.

In the decades that followed, various colonies declared their own local days of thanksgiving. But the first national day of Thanksgiving was in 1789, when George Washington made a proclamation. Exactly one month after America defeated Britain in the Revolutionary War (which happened on September 3, 1789), George Washington declared that Thursday, November 26, 1789 would be a national day of thanksgiving and prayer. His proclamation read,

“[I] recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness" (issued on October 3, 1789).^[1]

Washington’s precedent was followed by future presidents, who would sporadically declare a national day of Thanksgiving according to the need of the nation to direct our focus upon God. Furthermore, some of the states in the union had their own days of Thanksgiving celebration, but the dates varied from state to state.

It was not until 1863 that a national Thanksgiving Day was established, when Abraham Lincoln man made a proclamation. Mind you, this was in the midst of the Civil War! Lincoln established the last Thursday in November as a day of “Thanksgiving and Praise” to God. His proclamation read,

“I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, ... to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that ... they fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it" (issued on October 3, 1863).^[2]

So the United States celebrated the last Thursday of November as an official, National Holiday, until Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation to change the date to the fourth Thursday of November. He did so with this proclamation:

“I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate and set aside Thursday, the twentieth day of November, 1941, as a day to be observed in giving thanks to the Heavenly Source of our earthly blessings" (issued on November 8, 1941).^[3]

And our country has been celebrating the holiday on the fourth Thursday ever since.

At Rock Valley Bible Church, it has been our custom that on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, that we would give an opportunity to all in the congregation to publicly express their thanks to God. So, we have one more proclamation to make this morning:

“I, Steve Brandon, pastor of Rock Valley Bible Church, do hereby designate Sunday, November 23, 2025, as a day in which we are to give public testimony of thanks to God for all of the wonderful ways that he has blessed us” (issued on November 23, 2025).^[4]

So, we will do that this morning after my message.

My message this morning comes from Psalm 100. It is an appropriate Psalm to be exposited on this day, as the superscription of the Psalm says, “A Psalm for Giving Thanks.” Indeed, that is the title of my message this morning: “A Psalm for Giving Thanks.” My aim this morning is to “prime the pump” of your own thankfulness to God to encourage you at the end of my message to give a testimony of thanks to God. My message this morning will be shorter than normal, to give all of you an opportunity to share some ways in which you are thankful to God.

So, let’s read our text:

Psalm 100
Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
    Serve the LORD with gladness!
    Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the LORD, he is God!
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
    and his courts with praise!
    Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the LORD is good;
    his steadfast love endures forever,
    and his faithfulness to all generations.

The words of this Psalm are well known. You have probably sung them before, without even knowing it. Take out a hymnal from the pew in front of you. turn to Hymn #101. The hymn is entitled, “All People That on Earth Do Dwell.”^[5] It was written in the 1500’s by William Kethe. and published in Scottish Psalter in 1565. A Psalter is basically a hymnal, in which each hymn is a Psalm, but to rhyme and meter for easy singing.

This has been done with Psalm 100. You probably know this tune. You may be able to sing the first stanza:

The tune you probably used to sing it has a name. It is called “Old Hundredth.” In our hymnals, you can see it in all caps at the bottom: OLD HUNDREDTH. Below that are the initials, “L. M.,” which stands for “Long Meter,” which means, 8 syllables in every line.

These words are a summary of the first two verses of Psalm 100,

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
Serve the LORD with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

These words are a summons for all of the earth to come and worship the LORD. The summons in these verses have a ring of joy and gladness. We are to sing with cheerful voice. We are to come before him and rejoice. We are to make a joyful noise to the Lord. We are to serve the Lord with gladness. We are to come into his presence with singing!

Here’s my first point this morning: 

1. Worship the LORD with Joy (verses 1-2)

God calls us to worship him! God calls us to worship him with joy! We normally think of joy as an emotion that is not controlled by us. as if something happens to us, which causes us to be happy! Yet here, the LORD commands us to have joy. The LORD commands us to have joy in our worship of him! When we come to the LORD, we are to come with cheerful voice! We are to serve the LORD with gladness.

The question easily comes, what if I’m not joyful this day? as circumstances in my life are difficult? and I’m not feeling it right now? John Piper here is helpful. In writing about how we are to serve the LORD with gladness, he writes,

“I am often asked what a Christian should do if the cheerfulness of obedience is not there. It is a good question. My question is not to simply get on with your duty because feelings are irrelevant! My answer has three steps. First, confess the sin of joylessness. Acknowledge the culpable coldness of your heart. Don’t say it doesn’t matter how you feel. Second, pray earnestly that God would restore the joy of obedience. Third, go ahead and do the outward dimension of your duty in the hope that the doing will rekindle the delight.”^[6]

Perhaps right now, you have a joylessness in your service to the Lord. you have a joylessness in your worship to the Lord. Perhaps it would do you well to take a moment to pray before reading on. Confess the sin to the Lord. If we are going to give thanks to the Lord at the end of my message, it would be helpful now to have a joy in our heart. Thankfulness flows from a heart of joy. Perhaps such a prayer would be appropriate, “Father, we confess how easy it is to lack joy. We acknowledge how wrong this is. We express our need for you to give us the joy you want of us. So, Father, I pray that you would give us joyful hearts this day at Rock Valley Bible Church.”

Praying to the LORD for a thankful heart is a good thing to do. Do you know the hymn, “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee”? 

Did you notice the prayer in the third and fourth stanzas? "Melt the clouds of sin and sadness." This is a prayer that God would wipe the sadness away. "Drive the dark of doubt away." This is a prayer that the darkness of (sinful) doubt would be removed. Finally, "Fill us with the light of day" is a prayer for the joy of the morning to come into our souls.

If you lack joy, pray to the LORD for joy!

Let’s move on in Psalm 100. In verse 3, we have a reason why it is that we are to worship the Lord with joy.

2. Because He is God (verse 3).

Psalm 100:3
Know that the LORD, he is God!
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

This is why we worship the Lord with joy! Because he is God. To be more accurate, Because he is our God. This is where true joy comes in. That God is our God! We are his people. We are the sheep of his pasture. He is our shepherd! He cares for us!

Do you remember this Springtime when we were working our way through John 10? In that chapter, Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (John 10:11). This is what Jesus did for us. He claimed us as his own sheep. and laid down his life for us, by dying for our sins upon the cross!

The gospel simply calls us to believe this! To believe that Jesus died for our sins upon the cross. This is the source of all true joy and happiness and delight in the Lord! That God claimed us as his sheep.

Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me" (John 10:14). This is what we celebrate at Christmastime. God come into the flesh, to dwell among us, to live a perfect life, to save his people from their sins! (Matthew 1:21). Jesus does this as the good shepherd, who knows his sheep and claims us as his sheep. Psalm 100 alludes to this in verse 3.

Psalm 100:3
Know that the LORD, he is God!
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

We are his people! Let that sink in! We are his people! God claims us as his own! The Old Hundredth hymn speaks of this very thing. Consider the second stanza of the hymn:

The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid he did us make;
We are his flock, he doth us feed,
And for his sheep he doth us take.

Why do we worship the LORD? Because He is God. Because he is our God! We are his flock. He feeds us. He takes care of us! So, let us worship the Lord with Joy!

Let’s move on. In verse 4 of Psalm 100, we have another command:

Psalm 100:4
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
    and his courts with praise!
    Give thanks to him; bless his name!

Actually, we have several commands. (1) Enter his gates; (2) Give thanks to him; (3) Bless his name. In this way, it’s like verses 1 and 2, where we have three commands as well. (1) Make a joyful noise; (2) Serve the LORD; (3) Come with singing! Here’s the essence of verse 4: 

3. Come to the LORD with Thanks (verse 4)

I think this is why the superscript to the Psalm says, “A Psalm for Thanksgiving.” This is the core of the Psalm: when we come to the LORD, we are to come with thanks unto the Lord.

I heard one man say that this is the password of entering into the presence of God. Picture yourself at the gates, wanting to get in. And the guard at the gate says, “What is the password.” And you say, “Thanksgiving.” and he lets you in. This is the ticket into the courts of God. It is thanks to him.

When Paul spoke of the sinfulness of those in the world, he said that their cardinal sins were two: They didn’t honor God. They did not give thanks to God. "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened" (Romans 1:21). On the contrary, these are the very two things that we are to do as we enter into his courts. We are to honor the LORD in our praise. We are to give thanks to the LORD in all things.

Really, these are one and the same. To thank the LORD is to praise the LORD. I think that’s they the Old Hundredth doesn’t use the word, “Thanks” in the third stanza. Rather, it speaks only of “praising and lauding and blessing his name.” 

This is the essence of giving thanks. It is praising the LORD. It is acknowledging what the LORD has done in your life. So, as you think now of something that you might want to share in our service when my message is completed, I want you to think of how it will give praise to the LORD. This is the essence of a good, Christian testimony.

You can say, “I’m thankful for my warm house!” But, a non-Christian might say the same thing. Instead, you can thank the LORD for the way that he has provided for you, in giving you a warm house. In this way, you give thanks to the LORD. You can say, “I’m thankful for my health.” but a non-Christian might say the same thing. Instead, you can thank the LORD for the way that he has given you health! In this way, you give thanks to the LORD.

There are ways that you can thank God that are self-centered. Do you remember the story that Jesus told of the Pharisee Pharisee who stood up and said, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get" (Luke 18:11-12). So, let us be God-centered in our giving of thanks to him.

So, why? Why are we to give thanks to the LORD? Again, like the first half of the Psalm, the writer gives us a reason. Here’s how the Old Hundredth says it: 

Here’s how the Psalmist says it (in verse 5).

Psalm 100:5
For the LORD is good;
    his steadfast love endures forever,
    and his faithfulness to all generations.

I trust that you can see my last point: 

4. Because He is Good (verse 5).

We worship the LORD with joy (verses 1-2), because he is God (verse 3). And we come to the LORD with thanks (verse 4), because he is good (verse 5). "His steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations."

The Lord has been kind to us in so many ways. There are many things for which you may give thanks to God today. But none greater than in Jesus, who died for us upon the cross. Jesus died for us, not because we were so lovely or so deserving, because, in fact, we weren’t deserving. But it was because of God’s love that he died for us. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

This is why we are thankful people, because Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Isn’t this what motivates a thankfulness in your heart? When people come and do for you what you can’t do for yourself?

I envision the hiker, who is off on some remote trail in the wilderness someplace, miles from any civilization. I envision this hiker breaking his leg. But he has a Garmin device and he presses the button, which notifies the authorities of danger through the satellite communication system. Then, in a short time, a helicopter comes and airlifts the hiker to safety. What is the perspective of the hiker to the rescue workers? There is utter thanks, because the hiker was doomed. How would the hiker ever get out of the wilderness with a broken leg?

I envision the mother whose child falls ill in the middle of the night. She is profoundly thankful for the nurses and doctors in the emergency room who tend to the child to help diagnose and cure the child of the sick child.

I envision a sailor, who has been stranded on a remote island. When the Coast Guard arrives by ship to the rescue, the sailor is beyond thankful to them for coming.

This is our salvation. We were desperate. We could not help ourselves. We had a broken leg deep in the wilderness and could not walk out by ourselves. We had an ill child that we could not heal. We were on a deserted island with no resources to get off of the island. We had no recourse in and of ourselves to be saved from our sins, unless God, in his love died for us and reconciled us to himself and brought us to a place of safety. This is our salvation, that God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves.

In Psalm 100, God promises that such love will continue in our lives, not only today, but forever. "His steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 100:5). Does this sound familiar? In our service, we read Psalm 136, which repeats this phrase 26 times! “For his steadfast love endures forever.” “For his steadfast love endures forever.” “For his steadfast love endures forever.” “For his steadfast love endures forever.” “For his steadfast love endures forever.” “For his steadfast love endures forever.”

How appropriate that we, as a congregation repeated the stanza over and over again. The LORD's steadfast love will continue and continue on forever in our lives. This means that we will continually have content for which we can give thanks to God always in our lives, because his steadfast love toward us is not going to stop. God never has a "last time that I will help." God doesn't tell the hiker that this is the last time he gets a rescue. He doesn't say, "The next time you break your leg, you are off on your own." That's not how it works. The rescue workers will come out again. And God in his grace will continue in his steadfast love to us.

God's steadfast love will continue, not only to us, but also to all generations. So know, that next year, if we have another Thanksgiving testimony service, you will have new and fresh ways that God's steadfast love has met you this past year for you to give thanks to God.

We have every reason to be a thankful people.

This sermon was delivered to Rock Valley Bible Church on November 23, 2025 by Steve Brandon.
For more information see www.rockvalleybiblechurch.org.

[1] https://firstliberty.org/news/thanksgiving-proclamations.

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2522-thanksgiving-day-1941.
 
[4] Issued on November 23, 2025.

[5] You can read the lyrics and all about the hymn here: https://hymnary.org/text/all_people_that_on_earth_do_dwell.

[6] John Piper, Desiring God (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Press, 1986), 221.