Into His Gates With Thanksgiving

Enter and Leave With Thanksgiving

Ps 100:1-5 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. 2 Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. 3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. 5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

I King 10:4-5 And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, 5 And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her.

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Today is our annual Thanksgiving meal and I realize that this sermon alone stands between you and my 22 pound, sausage dressing stuffed, Cajun marinade injected for 24 hours, covered with two pounds of hickory smoked bacon so that the fat drips down through the meat, slap yo’ mama, turkey! If you have trouble containing yourself, I don’t blame you because the temptation has been there for me since last night!

The Thanksgiving, glutton fest that we all know so well was started as a celebration in the fall of 1621 by a bunch of Europeans from Holland, known as Pilgrims, who were celebrating having stayed alive for one year in the New World. The year before in 1620, they had begun their life and now a year later had much to be thankful for. 46 members of the original 102 had died either by pneumonia or scurvy. Upon landing they had braved a harsh winter with severe storms ill prepared but those who made it through that winter had made friends with the Indians who taught them to plant the local crops and so it was with a thankful heart at simply being alive and able to eat that caused the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims invited 91 local Indians to eat with their 56 survivors for that first meal. All that food was cooked by only four Pilgrim women and two teenage girls because 13 women had died through the tough winter. They did have turkey and deer, but it was not injected with Cajun seasoning and smothered with bacon and they have forkfuls of boiled pumpkin but no pie because there was no flour. Yet, the historical record indicates that they were truly thankful and feasted for three days straight! You’ve never been truly thankful until you’ve come through a great hardship and survived with blessing to spare.

By the way, the Pilgrims never celebrated Thanksgiving again. The next winter and summer were a disaster and that, combined with even more people arriving to the New World, nixed the celebration. Thanksgiving was not celebrated again until 1777 after the British were defeated by the 13 colonies. After America officially won our independence, celebrating Thanksgiving was frowned upon and Thomas Jefferson, the man who removed all the miracles from his New Testament, officially condemned the celebration of the holiday. In 1827, the editor of a popular Boston Ladies’ Magazine, Sarah Josepha Hale, began to study the Pilgrims and began to lobby for a national holiday. She was laughed at, scorned, and generally ignored. But then started the Civil War, a battle that divided the country’s families with brother killing brother and ripped apart the heart of a country that had once been founded upon worshipping God. In 1863, just after the bloody battle of Gettysburg, wrote a patriotic editorial where she begged the country that the last Thursday in November be set aside to “offer to God our tribute of joy and gratitude for the blessings of the year.” That October, President Abraham Lincoln signed the act into law and Thanksgiving was born as we know it. For a nation to set aside time to be thankful, it took great trauma and great pain! Perhaps, Thanksgiving is just a time of the year for you to eat some turkey and watch the Cowboy’s game, but – if you’ve had your back up against the wall and been through a storm or two – then this holiday is special to you and you can really say that you are thankful to be alive and to serve the Lord!

1 Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Thanksgiving is commanded by the Word of God. And not just on one particular day but everyday that we live, we are commanded to offer up “thanksgiving” unto God. Human beings tend to be arrogant when things are going well and tend to think that we have created the success in our life ourselves. It takes a little hardship to make us truly thankful to God for deliverance and I think that is one of the reasons why God allows times of suffering and storms to come into our lives: not only to remind us of our dependence upon Him, but so that we will be truly thankful for the everyday blessings. There have been many times that I obeyed the scripture that says to give thanks for our daily food, and yet not been truly thankful. I expected there to be food on my table and never gave it a second thought. I remember my grandfather’s prayers at the yearly Thanksgiving meal: they were long and it became a family joke because it seemed that he would pray for everything and everybody and he always ended with “and Lord we are truly thankful for the bread and meat and this wonderful food that you have given to us.” I remember as a teenager looking at Papaw after the prayer had ended with those words and saw him wiping tears from his eyes while the rest of the family was already joking and diving into the food much as we will do later today. When I asked him if he was alright, he replied “I remember as a kid when there was no food at Thanksgiving.” He had lived through the depression, and sixty-five years later I realized because of that, Papaw was really the only one at that table that was truly thankful for the food. His tears and prayer were real and sincere. He appreciated the little things the rest of us were taking for granted.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Maybe you have not overcome some great trial or severe test, or maybe you have this year. Maybe you have had a great miracle in your life this year or maybe you have not. I want you to realize that if the scripture commands us to be thankful with the words “this is the will of God concerning you” then that means that everyone of us have something to thank God for. The scripture says that all good things come from God (James 1:17) so if you have received any good thing this year, you have a reason to praise Him and to be thankful! But I urge you not to be thankful for just the large blessings that you may or may not have received, but thank Him for the little things that we too often take for granted. Who kept you breathing last night and created this beautiful day to live in?! Who gave you an opportunity to live this day? God! Therefore He is worthy to be praised! If you are breathing you have something to be thankful for! Let everything that hath breath Praise Ye the Lord! If you have the Holy Ghost, then you have the most precious gift that a man can ever receive on this earth, and you have a reason to be thankful. If you have a family, then you are blessed and you have a reason to be thankful! If you have felt the presence of God here today, then you have experienced something that the majority of the population of the world will die having never felt, and for that you can be thankful! If you’ve got health enough to get out of bed and out of the house today, then you ought to praise the God who granted such a thing!

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In our text, we read the entire 100^th Psalm. It is known to the Jews as the “Thanksgiving Psalm” and it has a little note in the original Hebrew above the verses that is not in our English versions which designate it as such. It was written after the children of Israel had been captive for 70 years by the Babylonians. The Babylonian king had come and carried off the children of Israel captive and God had allowed it because of their idolatry and sinful lifestyles. The children of Israel had gotten used to the fact that God was always there and was always forgiving. They had gotten used to the beautiful temple that Solomon had built with its cedar walls covered with gold and the presence of God that abided there. They got so used to God being so accessible that they stopped being thankful for it. It stopped being special to them. Surely the God who had blessed them to build such a beautiful temple and who was so merciful would not be turned off by just a little sin in their lives during the week? Yes, they were bowing before the idol on Friday, but surely God’s presence would still be there in the temple on Sunday when they offered up a half-hearted offering?! But when they got unthankful and sinful, God left the beautiful temple. He allowed the Babylonian king to come and destroy the city of Jerusalem including the house of God completely and then carry off the people into a foreign land where they would live for 70 years under different rules and customs and as strangers.

The captivity did two things: it forever cured Israel from idolatry, and it forever put a thankful heart in the Jews toward the house of God. They would fall into other traps sometimes but they would forever worship only the one God Jehovah, and would always be thankful for the house of God where they could worship Him. You do not appreciate the house of God until there is no house of God. And so as the Jews were coming back from their captivity and moving back and rebuilding Jerusalem; as they were coming back home to where Zerrubabel was building another temple, a place where they could forever worship God, the Holy Spirit moved upon somebody (the author of this psalm is unknown) and under the inspiration of God, penned these verses that we read in your hearing:

I like the fourth verse of that Psalm! In other words, when you come into the house of God, realize that you are coming to a place where God’s presence dwells and come with thanksgiving: be thankful unto Him! It’s almost as the psalmist is saying “don’t make the same mistake as the generation before you who took God and His house for granted until they lost their access to both!” Realize the preciousness of what you are doing, that you have the ability and the breath to praise your creator. When you walk through the outer gate leading to the house of God, come with true thankfulness on your lips and a praise in your heart and lift God up!

That’s why the scripture that I read earlier in I Thessalonians doesn’t just say to thank God in the good situations, but to be thankful in ALL THINGS! Even if you are in the worst trial of your life today, you can genuinely fulfill that scripture because you are in God’s house this morning. If you are here and your life is lost and despondent, then you can be thankful because you are in the presence of an Almighty God who can turn that life around! If you need direction then you are in a place where you can receive direction! If you are heavy under the condemnation and weight of a life of sin, then there is a name of a man who shed His blood for you so that you could repent and be baptized and so have that life of sin erased completely from your spiritual record! And you are in a place where you have access to such baptism! For that you can be thankful! Maybe you have had a horrible year and cannot help but think of the tragedies that you have faced, but you are in a place where the God of hope who can turn even the worst situations around is moving and you have His Word that He is no respecter of persons! You have a right to be thankful because no matter what the load, problem, storm, or situation, you are in the house with Jesus Christ today and Jesus Christ can fix any situation if you will get Him involved! You’ve got a reason to be thankful today even if your world is falling apart, because you are in God’s house!

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We take for granted the house of God today because there are churches on every street corner in America. You can go to a ritualistic or Pentecostal, traditional or modern, old stone, or new sheet metal church today. You have your pick of churches, but not all buildings that have “church” on the sign out front are really “houses of God.” God no longer permanently dwells within wood and stone structures, but He does descend into a meeting place if believers come together and genuinely worship Him! At 9 am this morning, this building was not different than any other building in this city. It has electrical wire and wood and concrete and as far as spirituality was not special in any way. But about 10 am, something changed because some people who woke up this morning with their mind made up to “not forsake the assembling of themselves together” came together with a made-up mind to worship God in Spirit and in truth. Not to go through some ritual invented by some religion that does not move man and even less God, but to come and lift Him up and to be truly thankful to Him for the changes and the power and the mighty work that He was doing in their life. And as they began to praise the King of Kings, He was true to His Word because He “inhabitest the praises” of His people who are in a covenant relationship with Him. So as the praises went up, God’s glory came down until the King of Kings and Lord of Lords stepped into this place to heal broken hearts and restore spirits and set the captive free! It’s not the building and the sign out front, but the fact that someone gathered together and worshipped God with everything in them that we can truly say this place has become the “house of God” today! When the worship leaves with the people, then so will the evident Spirit of God, but you are blessed today because you have come into a place where God thought the praise sincere and real enough to visit. You’ve come to the house of God this morning! And for that you can be truly thankful!

To many, going to church is drudgery or a religious chore and something that most people do not do with any regularity. To those, I only say that you must have been visiting only a church, because if you had been to the “house of the Lord” then there would be something that would well up in your life as a spirit of Thanksgiving! There would be a longing to return! Another Psalmist, King David, put it like this:

Ps 122:1 I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.

As I was studying this week, I noticed one commentator (Thompson) wrote that this was a psalm where “David professes his joy for the church.” I have to disagree. David wasn’t excited about just going to a church, but to go “into the house of the Lord.” If the Lord had not been there moving and working, then David would not have been so excited! If God was not here this morning, then there would be no reason to come to this church. If God’s Spirit did not move among us and no one yielded to Him, then we would all leave today having come to church but never “into the house of the Lord.” This only becomes the house of the Lord when God is here and free to work.

Sadly, two people can walk into the same service and one can go with faith determined to worship God and yield to Him and allow Him to work in their life, and the other with doubt or just to fulfill religious obligation and when they leave, the first has been to the “house of the Lord” and the other has just been to “church.” The Spirit of the Lord was there, and it touched the one and changed his life, but the other never really offered their self or submitted themselves to God. They never really worshipped God or stepped out in faith on the Word of God. To them it was just a boring exercise until the food was served. They could have entered into “the house of the Lord” but they just came to church. You can tell which category you fall into because those who come to this place with their minds made up to worship God and receive all that He has for them, are eager to come back next week. They are glad when you say to them “let us go into the house of the Lord.” They can’t wait for Wednesday night to come around. They are truly thankful for the house of the Lord and His presence and the opportunity to get together with others and worship Him and learn of His ways. But for the latter who is just fulfilling a religious duty and really does not care to get into the presence of God or learn to truly love Him, if you say “let us go into the house of the Lord,” they get mad at you for “bugging them” to go to church. If they do come, they don’t plan to change anything and so they don’t give anything and so they never really receive anything. The reason that they have a problem being faithful to services is because they aren’t coming to “the House of the Lord,” in their minds they are just coming to church.

But God wants someone to get the revelation that He does not want them to become faithful to a weekly ritual every Sunday morning at 10 am and Sunday night at 6 pm. He wants you to come to this place with the mindset “I’m going into the house of the Lord.” “I’m going to praise and worship and be thankful for an opportunity to lift Jesus up!” “I refuse to leave until I receive everything that God has for me!” How do you get that? By obeying the psalmist instruction: “enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise; be thankful unto Him and bless His name!” You praise your way into a blessing! When you come into the parking lot, you have a made-up mind to touch God and allow God to touch you today. When you walk through the door, you do not do so with the attitude “I hope the sermon is not too long today, so I can go home and do whatever I feel is more important” but you come into this place thankful to be here, thankful to God for the big things and the little things and even thankful over the bad things because now that you are in the house of the Lord, you can call out to Him and feel His reassurance and get His peace and His Spirit and take them home with you! And I challenge someone today, maybe you did not enter into the door with such a mindset, but why don’t you change your attitude about this service right now in your mind: it’s not too late, because if you will begin to praise and lift Him up for the remainder of this service, you can leave here knowing that “I’ve been at the house of the Lord!” And if you do so, then you will eagerly look forward to being in the house of God again next time.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

If you do so, you will leave with a different view of the House of the Lord forever because God will change you and transform you! You ought to be thankful that you are not in some dead church where God is not free to move, but that no matter what need you have, God is here and wanting to work it out and to bless you in ways that you have never been touched!

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I’m talking about being thankful to enter into God’s house. I would like to spend the latter part of this message today by pointing out to you the story of one woman’s first time to the House of God. We read about her in our text and she is known in scripture only by the name “the Queen of Sheba.” Her story is found in 1 Kings chapter 10 and perhaps you would like to turn there with me to follow along.

Sheba was an ancient name of the area now known as Ethiopia on the African continent. How the Queen of this area heard about Solomon we can only guess, but heard she had. She had heard of Solomon’s riches and wisdom. She had heard of Solomon’s blessings, but most of all, she had heard of Solomon’s worship and it so moved her, that Jesus said that she came from the “uttermost parts of the earth.” She traveled a long and dangerous journey over desert and mountainous terrain to experience what she had only heard about. I preached a message last year entitled “how far will you go to see the king?” I won’t “repreach” that message except to say that the way that the Queen of Sheba got from just hearing about what God could do to experiencing it was that she got a made up mind that no matter what happened and whatever would try to stand in her way, she was going to get to the house and presence of God! If you have your mind made up today to not leave until you get a blessing from God, then you will not leave empty handed!

I King 10:1-2 And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to prove him with hard questions. 2 And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.

She did not come to appreciate the buildings and fine construction even though the temple and Solomon’s house must have been something to see. Her real reason in coming was to talk with the king and share the worries and concerns of her heart. She came to ask the “hard questions.”

Jesus said in Matthew 4:12 that this generation would stand in judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she traveled such a long way to talk with Solomon and a “greater than Solomon is here.” He was talking about Himself: Jesus is the “greater than Solomon.”

I don’t come to the house of the Lord to catch up on the latest gossip or see what’s new in everyone’s life. I don’t come out of religious duty. I come to talk with the King of Kings, the “greater than Solomon” Jesus Christ! I come to worship Him! I come to ask Him the “hard questions” of my life. I come because I want to know Him better and live more like Him! Notice the next verse:

1 Kings 10:3 And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not.

Solomon answered every one of her questions. If Solomon could do that, then how much more can the “greater than Solomon,” Jesus Christ? You ought to be thankful today because you are in a house where you can get the answers to the hard questions in your life. Maybe you were wondering “why I seem to be spinning my wheels in life?” or “there seems to be something missing, there’s got to be more to life than what I have experienced?” There is. It is the power of the Holy Ghost and it comes to fill that emptiness and longing in your life. The things of this world will never leave you satisfied, but the Holy Ghost will quench that thirst forever! Maybe you had the question “does God really love me and have a plan for my life?” The answer is “yes,” and you are in luck today, because not only does He love you, but you are in His house where you can feel that love and allow Him to change your direction and course to fit His plan!

Solomon had two huge pillars placed at the entrance to the house of the Lord. He named one Boaz and the other Jachin. Boaz means “in God is strength” and Jachin means “In God is direction.” You can get what you need at God’s house and you can get the direction and strength to follow it! Take people away from God’s house and they lose their Boaz and their Jachin. They lose their ability to find the right direction in life. They lose their strength to stand for truth. They develop errant beliefs and begin to justify sin in their lives just as the Israelites did so long ago. But put people in the house of the Lord and in His presence regularly and they find their direction and receive the strength to walk down the path that God has given them. You ought to enter into this place with thanksgiving because you can receive strength and direction today. You can have every hard question answered!

Now pay attention to the next few verses:

1 Kings 10:4-5 And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, 5 And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her.

The Message version of the Bible reads like this:

1 Kings 10:5b and the elaborate worship extravagant with Whole-Burnt-Offerings at the steps leading up to The Temple of GOD, it took her breath away. (The Message)

God’s house took her breath away! It left the Queen of Sheba speechless! The New Living Translation says that “she was breathless.” The NIV says that she “was overwhelmed!” All the finery of Solomon was impressive, but when she came to the House of the Lord, she was blown away!

1 Kings 10:6-7 And she said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom. 7 Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard.

She had to confess, that despite all that she had heard about Solomon and the temple, it was better than she had even imagined. I don’t know what kind of preconceived notions that you came to church with today about God or about the house of God, but it is God’s will for you to leave this place speechless after experiencing His power! He wants you to leave this place having experienced a whole lot more than you ever dream of! God designed His house as a place that should leave you “breathless!” Life gets drab and dull and if we are not careful we allow it to rob our joy. But the House of the Lord is the place where God wants to restore the spark and kindle the fire and infuse hope! You ought to be thankful that you are in the house of the Lord this morning, because here wonder can be restored and your life transformed beyond anything that you ever dreamed that it could! If you will let God have His way in your life this morning, you can leave “breathless!”

I must hurry:

I Kings 10:8-10 Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. 9 Blessed be the LORD thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel: because the LORD loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice. 10 And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones: there came no more such abundance of spices as these which the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon.

The happiness of the servants impressed Sheba. When people come into our church, they ought to be impressed with the eagerness and happiness of those who are in this house! But notice that Sheba had not come empty handed to the house of the Lord, but she had brought gifts of the finest that she had to offer. These she willingly laid down in front of Solomon.

But notice verse 13:

IKing 10:13 And king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.

To the Queen’s amazement, Solomon gave unto her ANYTHING that she asked for and she left so loaded down with gifts that the presents that she brought seemed small. When you read these scriptures in 2 Chronicles, it emphasizes the fact that Solomon gave her far more than she had brought (2 Chronicles 9:12).

You cannot bring something to God at His house and leave empty handed! You cannot offer a sacrifice of praise and not receive something in return. You cannot give your life to Him and not walk out overwhelmed with gifts in return! You cannot give up your will to Him and it not be worth it because of what you receive from Him! Maybe you don’t feel like you have much to offer God, but if you will give to Him what you have, you will find yourself breathless at the blessing and overwhelmed at the gifts! You will leave thankful that you brought your life to Him and you will be anxious to come back to His house next time! You see God not only wants you to enter into His gates with Thanksgiving, but to also leave with Thanksgiving at what you have received!

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I close with this. Around 15 months ago, archeologists claimed to have found the legendary civilization of Sheba in Africa. One of the interesting facts about their discovery is that within the heart of the city, they found a temple built, a place of worship. And the University of Calgary reports that it has an outer court, and inner court, and a holy of holies just like Solomon’s temple did! Obviously the Queen of Sheba was so changed during her visit, that she could not go back to her old religion and way of life but she took the House of the Lord home with her!

It is the will of God that you be so changed in this place that you take home what you feel! I’m not talking about a temporary blessing, but that God would completely transform your life so that the House of the Lord goes with you! How can you do such a thing? By receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, for when you do so the scriptures say that your body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit! God moves into your life just like He dwelt in Solomon’s building! Just like the Queen of Sheba, you can take the House of God with you! But you’ve got to be willing to bless Him today: to enter into His gates with Thanksgiving and enter into His presence with praise! The only thing that I can think of better than someone receiving a blessing from thanking and praising God here today, is for someone to be so changed that their life is full of such thanksgiving from this day forth! Don’t just enter into the gates, but leave the gates with Thanksgiving too!

When you allow yourself to be so changed and thankful for the house of the Lord like the Queen of Sheba was, you will impact not only your life but every generation that is to follow you. We know this because it was a thousand years later, in Acts chapter 8, that the Holy Spirit led Philip away from a red-hot revival in Samaria to meet someone in a desert. That someone was the servant of a Queen of Ethiopia who was returning from visiting the temple in Jerusalem. Where did and Ethiopian get such a desire that he would cross a desert alone to travel to the house of the Lord? From the Queen of Sheba! And like the Queen of Sheba, the servant did not go back home empty, because before the day was over Philip had baptized him in the name of Jesus and the Holy Ghost had come! He went to see the temple and left being the temple! It is the will of God that you allow Him to work in your life so that not only did you enter with thanksgiving but that you leave so changed that you spend the rest of your life thanking Him! That’s a real Thanksgiving celebration!

No matter what disappointments or heartaches that you entered with, you can leave with thanksgiving at what God has done in your life!