Thankfulness: Psalm 100 Barford, Hampton Lucy and Loxley: May 2015 N.B. song in the middle, rather than beginning or end. Who can tell me our Value for this half term? Thankfulness. Today we re going to think about why it s so important to thank God for how awesome he is and how good he is to us. And we re going to use one of the Psalms - one of the poems and songs that we can find in the Bible - to help us to understand. This is what Psalm 100 says: On your feet now - applaud God! sing yourselves into his presence. Know this: God is God, [and God, God.] He made us; we didn t make him. We re his people, his well-tended sheep. Enter with the password: Thank you! Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him. Worship him. For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever.
The Bible is the Word of God. That means that even though it was written thousands of years ago, if we listen carefully then we can still hear God speaking to us through its words today. I wonder what he might be saying to you? Listen again to the opening lines of Psalm 100: On your feet now - applaud God! sing yourselves into his presence. Ok. Let s do that right now. First, I d like you to close your eyes for a moment, and think about the things that make you feel most thankful to God. Maybe it s the people you love best. Maybe it s your home, or your bedroom, or some of your favourite toys. Maybe it s something you really love doing: music or football or reading. Maybe it s something really good that s happened in your life. Don t worry if you can t think of anything in particular. Maybe today you can just thank God for being alive and for how much he loves you. Ok: open your eyes. And when I count to three, I want you to do what the Psalm says - not yet - I m going to count to three - and then we re going to stand up and give God a great big round of applause to say thank you for all that he s done for us. Are you ready? One two three On your feet now - applaud God!
Brilliant. Please sit down again. The next line says: The psalm tells us to bring a gift of laughter to God, but it s quite hard to laugh without a good reason, isn t it? So I thought I d tell you a joke. [N.B. check in advance that the school is ok for you to tell a joke whose punchline is sheep poo. If they re not, then at this point ask for one or two older children to come forward to tell a joke.] Knock knock. Who s there? Sheep. Sheep who? Careful you don t step in it! So: we ve applauded God. We ve brought him a gift of laughter. The next line of the Psalm says: Sing yourself into his presence. Let s stand to praise Father God now, in the words of our song. [Sing an appropriate praise song, such as Thank you, Lord, for this fine day. ] Brilliant. Please sit down, and let s go back to the words of Psalm 100. On your feet now - applaud God! sing yourselves into his presence.
Know this: God is God, [and God, God.] He made us; we didn t make him. We re his people, his well-tended sheep. The Psalm says that we sing ourselves into God s presence. In other words, when we thank God - whether that s through applause or laughter or song - it brings us closer to God. It helps us to meet with him. And then the Psalm tells us who it is that we re meeting: the God of all creation, who made us. We didn t make him: in other words, he s not made up. He s very, very real; and we are his people. Just think: the awesome God of all creation asks us to come and meet with him - to spend time with him. But we can t see him, so how can we do that? Well, the next verse gives us the answer. It says: Enter with the password: Thank you! Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him. Worship him. Psalm 100 tells us that when we express our thankfulness, it s like a password that gets us into God s presence. We can make ourselves at home with him as we thank him and praise him and worship him. And the more time we spend with him, the more we learn about how awesome he is. As the final verse of the Psalm tells us, we
discover that: God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever. God doesn t tell us to thank him and praise him because he s vain and wants to hear us saying how great he is. He tells us to be thankful because he knows that we need to do that. Why? Because it reminds us how awesome and loving and loyal he is, and how we can always trust him. And because saying thank you is like a password, which brings us into his presence. Who can tell me how it felt when you were applauding God, or singing to him, or even laughing for him? [Take answers.] Who can tell me something you ve discovered about God today? [Take answers.] Does anyone have any questions? As our closing prayer, let s hear again the words of Psalm 100, this time in a different translation. Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 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.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures for ever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Amen.