Psalm 122: 1-9

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.” And now here we are, standing inside your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a well-built city; its seamless walls cannot be breached. All the tribes of Israel—the LORD’s people—make their pilgrimage here. They come to give thanks to the name of the LORD, as the law requires of Israel. Here stand the thrones where judgment is given, the thrones of the dynasty of David. Pray for peace in Jerusalem. May all who love this city prosper. O Jerusalem, may there be peace within your walls and prosperity in your palaces. For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, “May you have peace.” For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek what is best for you, O Jerusalem.

Decisions direct our lives and the decision to worship doesn’t just direct it deepens our lives. The decision to respond to the invitation to worship means that:

• Go

David was invited to go and to spend time with God and he went. So why do some decide to stay instead of go. We’ve all met people that, when invited to worship, have all kinds of reasons for not going: “It’s my only day off to sleep in.” “I don’t have to go to worship God.” “I have to work.” “I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.” “Those people are all hypocrites, there’s no way I would go there.” The list of reasons is endless. But maybe a better question would be to ask, why GO? As David says yes to the personal invitation of praise he discovers what worship can do.

• Glad

David didn’t just respond to the invitation to go he went with gladness. So often our going is accompanied by a grudge instead of gladness. As His children we forget that we “get to” instead of “have to”, praise really is a privilege. How we respond to the invitation of praise often depends on whether we see it as important or an interruption. What is it that you do that is more important than praise? The sad reality is that for most of us our lives are interrupted by praise instead of our lives being intertwined by praise. Think about those moments when you abandoned yourself to praise, when your soul soaked in the Savior. This hurried world leaves our hearts hungry for more of those simple moments to step into the stillness with Him. David’s heart was glad to be invited, to leave the mundane for the majesty of God.  The truth is that what we thirst for is found in time at His feet. You know a person’s priorities by what they gladly and willingly do not by what they are paid to. Will you responding to the invitation to praise and who will you invite to praise?

• Get

David discovers the strength in the structure of Jerusalem as he says that it is a well-built city, its seamless walls cannot be breached. This is because the architect of the city understood how all the pieces of stone and masonry were to fit together. There are no loose stones, no leftover pieces, and no awkward gaps in the walls. All the pieces fit together compactly and with harmony, each doing what it was made to do. Jerusalem was the center of Hebrew worship and reminded them of the foundational realities of their faith. It was the symbol and sign of God’s presence in their world and just like the structures of the city itself, they knew that only through God would all the various pieces of their lives fit together. It reminded them that ultimately their lives and their stories were shaped by God because He was with them. Worship reminds us that God is here with us and it is God who makes sense of our situations. It is His sacrifice that provides the structure to secure our lives. Just when nothing in life seems to make sense, when our week and our world feels like its crashing down, when we feel like a loose stone ready to fall out rather than one that fits perfectly in its place in the wall, we come to worship. Without worship, something is missing, we are incomplete and unfinished. We find direction and purpose for our journey when we come to the place of praise. It is there that we are reminded that God saves, that He heals and redeems. God fits the pieces together in ways we never could so that our lives are, “built well”, seamless because of His salvation.

• Give the Gift

David’s praise included praying for peace and prosperity not for himself but other people. Peace and prosperity is what the world seeks and what we who have come to praise have. We have the privilege to share the gift of God’s peace and prosperity, but if we don’t go we have nothing to give. The peace sought in these verses is much more than the mere absence of conflict, its completeness something the world can’t provide. The psalmist was not praying for his own peace and prosperity but interceding for others, praise should lead us to pray for other people. So who do you need to intercede for today, will you pray for their peace, prosperity, and protection? Because, for people to find peace of mind and peace with others, they must first find peace with God.

Psalm 100

1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 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. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Psalm 100 is not just a call to worship but a call to remember who and why we worship because as people our tendency is to forget and we need a reminder. The first verse says that it is addressed to “all the earth,” and the last verse says that it includes “all generations.” When we look at this Psalm we need to see that God had us in mind. This message of thanksgiving is so deep and wide that it encompasses and applies to every person in every era in every stage of life. This thanksgiving psalm reminds us of five thanksgiving commands.

• Shout

It means to “shout with the force of a trumpet blast,” Our Thanksgiving should be heard, from the depths of our being we proclaim our praise. The idea here is that praise can’t be contained, what God has done should be shared, unleashed because it can’t be keep inside any more. What the 100th Psalm does is that it emphasizes the foundation for our thanks, the Lord. Our tendency and the real danger is determining our thanksgiving on the basis of how much we have. “Do I have enough turkey to gorge myself sufficiently? Is my money secure? Am I healthy?” As a result we let these things determine out thankfulness. Yet after a quick scan in vs. 1 you’ll find the name of the Lord. In vs. 2 you’ll find the name of the Lord. In vs. 3 you’ll find the name of the Lord. In vs. 4 it says, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving.” And in vs. 5 you’ll find the name of the Lord. The basis of our thanksgiving is the Lord.

• Serve

It doesn’t say “serve the church or the pastor or the people it says, “serve the Lord.” The Bible teaches that if we witness on behalf of the Lord, if we feed the hungry, if we clothe the naked, if we do the work of the Lord, whatever it might be, we are serving the Lord. I’m not sure that we grasp the truth that the one we are really serving is the Savior. Often we serve out of obligation, fear, guilt or to be in the spotlight and draw attention to ourselves. But the Psalmist says, “In whatever you do, serve the Lord with gladness.”

• Sing

Come before him with joyful songs, have you noticed that in these first three commands, God reveals that He wants us not only to sing but to smile and be happy. “Shout with joy, serve with gladness, and come with joyful songs.” Take a moment and look in the mirror, what does your life reflect, a smile or a scowl?

• Be Secure

“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.” So often we base things on and respond by how we feel but God wants us to be secure and to know. He is our maker, the one who formed us inside and out and we are created in His image. The truth is that God made you the way He wanted you to be, have you given Him thanks for who you are? We are not just created we are also called into a relationship with God, we are His and we can belong. The problem is that most of us want to be shepherds, not sheep. “It’s not any fun being sheep,” we say so we go searching for the still waters on our own. We trust self when it comes to our safety, so we seek our own security and we invariably end up lost and separated. Submitting to the reality of being a sheep means I don’t have to try to be the shepherd. Today God is saying, “You be the sheep, let me be the shepherd, and I will lead you beside the still waters and the secure pastures, just let me lead.”

• Seek

In the O.T. the temple symbolized the presence of God and whenever the people came to the temple and entered the courtyards they were seeking God. Now that temple no longer exists, but often the place where we meet to worship God is called a “sanctuary,” indicating that God is there. The truth is that God is everywhere, He is with you as you drive on the highway, at work and play, He is with you every moment of your life. This is the source of our thanksgiving, but what if God began to treat us like we so often treat Him? What if God met our needs to the same extent that we gave Him our lives? What if we never saw another flower bloom because we grumbled when God sent the rain? What if God stopped loving and caring for us because we failed to love and care for others? What if God took away His message because we wouldn’t listen to His messenger? What if He wouldn’t bless us today because we didn’t thank Him yesterday? What if God answered our prayers the way we answer His call to serve? What if God decided to stop leading us tomorrow because we didn’t follow Him today? Yet each day we have the privilege to shout, serve, sing, to be sheep and to seek the shepherd. This Thanksgiving will you take your Thanks and give?