Shout For Joy!

This message was given Sunday, November 3 in the United Methodist Churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 100.

It's November, and November is the month of Thanksgiving.  So, we're going to start a new sermon series called “Thank God”.  We're going to look at the whole idea of giving thanks:  why we should do it, how it benefits us, and how it affects our relationship with God.

The Bible, and especially the Old Testament, tell us all the time that we should thank God.  In fact, one of the Old Testament rules that the people had to follow, one that's referred to lots of times in the Old Testament, is the thank offering.  This was a specific offering that was to be given to God at certain times and in certain ways as an expression of thanks to God.

In fact, even though we don't follow the Old Testament rules on thank offerings, we still carry on the spirit of them.  After all, we still take up an offering every week, right?  The real purpose of that offering is not to pay the bills of the church.  It's not even to fund mission projects or things like that.  That's what the money is used for, but that's not the reason we take up an offering.  We take up an offering to give thanks to God.  That's the real purpose of it.

One of the things people will say sometimes to make fun of the Christian faith—and I'll bet some of you have heard this one—is “Why do we have to thank God all the time?  Is God so dependent on praise and thanks that God needs to constantly hear us say it?  Is God vain, or weak, or needy, or something?”

Obviously, none of that's true.  God is not vain, or weak, or needy, or anything else.  God does not need to hear our thanks.  We need to say it.  We need to thank God for our benefit, not for God's benefit.

One of the reasons we need to do that is just to make sure we have our priorities straight.  It's to make sure we recognize how important God is to our lives.

Because it can be easy to forget, you know?  One of the things about our human nature is that we tend to take things for granted a lot of times.  If I go to the store and buy, say, some hamburger, and it turns out to be pretty good hamburger, am I going to go to the store and thank them for selling me such good hamburger?  Probably not.  I'll eat it and I'll go on about my business.  But if I go to the store and buy some hamburger and it turns out to be lousy, am I going to go to the store and complain?  Probably, yes.  It's just the way we are.

And we tend to be that way toward God, too.  When things do not go the way we think they should go, we tend to be pretty quick to complain to God and ask why God is allowing those things to happen.  When things go the way we think they should go, though, we often don't take the time to go to God and say thank you for that.  We just accept it and go on about our business.

That's not due to a lack of faith, necessarily.  It could be, but it also could be that we just take God for granted.  We know God is good, so when things go in a way we think is good, we just figure, well, okay then.  God is doing what God is supposed to do.  “God's in His heaven, all's right with the world”, as the saying goes.

And there's truth in that.  God is good.  Good is what God is supposed to do.  It's just that there's
a really fine line between recognizing that God is good and thinking God owes it to us to be good, that God owes it to us to do good things for us.  And that's not true.  God does not owe us anything.  And when we think that way, we get our priorities out of order.  We start thinking God is there to serve us, rather than realizing that we are here to serve God.

That's why we read Psalm 100 today.  I don't often preach from the psalms.  We read one every week as a responsive reading, but I don't very often preach on it.  But there's a lot of good stuff in the psalms, and we need to not just read them, but think about what they say and do what they tell us to do.

Our psalm today tells us to “shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.”  When's the last time you did that?  When is the last time you shouted for joy to the Lord?  Did you do it in the last week?  In the last month?  In the last year?  Have you ever done it?  Have you ever been so full of joy for what God has done that you shouted for joy, that you shouted your thanks to God?

Now, I know we're midwesterners.  Shouting for joy is not really our thing around here.  And yet, I go to a lot of football games and volleyball games, and in the winter I go to a lot of basketball games and wrestling meets, and I hear a lot of shouting for joy at those things.  I'm not being critical of that—you all know I love sports, and if you've seen me at a game you know I shout as much as anyone.  The thing is, though, how come we can shout for joy when our sports team wins, but we cannot shout for joy for all the things God has done for us?

We should shout for joy.  The psalm tells us why.  “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.”

That, right there, should be enough to make us shout for joy.  God made us, and we are his.  That's what it means to be God's children.  We are God's people, the sheep of God's pasture.

And yet, that's what we so often take for granted.  And that's sad.  Not because we're going to go to hell for it or anything, but because when we take those things for granted, we deprive ourselves of the joy of knowing them.

We are God's people.  Think about that.  Think about how awesome that is.  God made us, and we are God's people.  We are the sheep of God's pasture.

That's incredible.  We did nothing to deserve that.  We never could.  We could do nothing to deserve God creating us at all.  And we can do nothing to deserve being called God's people.  I'm not saying we're all terrible people, but we're people.  We're weak.  We're flawed.  We're sinful.  And yet, the all-powerful, flawless, sinless, perfect God claims us and calls us God's people.  God loves us, and God is with us, and God helps us, despite who we God is and who we are.

The wonder of that is beyond my ability to describe.  The thought of that should constantly fill us with joy.  That joy is we lose when we take what God does for granted.  That joy is what we take away from ourselves when we don't think about all the amazing things God has done for us and when we don't stop and thank God for them.

That's why we need to do what Psalm 100 says.  We need to come into God's presence with thanksgiving.  We need to come with praise.  We need to give thanks to God.  Not because God needs to hear it, but because we need to say it.  Because when we say it, and when we mean it, we realize all that God does for us.  And when we realize that, we cannot help but feel incredible awe and wonder and joy.

And then, we will realize why it is that we are asked to serve God.  God does not ask us to serve as some sort of punishment or duty or obligation.  God does not ask us to serve because God needs us to do things.  God could do anything and everything God wants to do without us.  God does not need us to do anything.  We are allowed to serve God.  We are given the privilege to serve God.  When we think about how great and how good and how loving God is, we realize that it is an incredible honor to be allowed to serve our wonderful God.

As Psalm 100 says, the Lord is good.  God's love endures forever.  God's faithfulness continues through all generations.

So, if you're struggling today, if you're having trouble feeling joy, if you feel like things are going wrong and you don't know what to do, read Psalm 100 and really think about it.  Think about the fact that you are one of God's people.  Realize that God is not there to serve us, we are there to serve God.  Realize what an incredible honor that is.  And then, do what the psalm says.  Shout for joy to our amazing, incredible, awesome God.