Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

For a long time now, NBC has aired Public Service Announcements under the title, “The More You Know.” Beginning in 1989, NBC has enlisted the help of more than 250 celebrities to produce these short spots on a wide range of social issues. The base idea behind this campaign is that the more you know, the more you will recognize and respond to various issues.

As we approach Thanksgiving 2006, God has a message for all of us. How we recognize and react to this holiday will be based on what we know. The more you know, the more this idea of thanksgiving will transform and change in your life. This day could mean turkey and football and then be absolutely forgotten about were it not for the never-ending leftovers. Or, it could be a day that marks a change in our journey with God. The difference maker will be found in the phrase, “The More You Know.”Today we’re in Psalm 100. If you look at that Psalm in the Bible, it has this heading above it: A psalm. For giving thanks. Out of the 150 Psalms in the Bible, this is the only one with that title. So apparently there is something exclusive and special about Psalm 100. Let’s jump into it.

Psalm 100 is short; just five verses long. So let’s just read the whole thing up front.

“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 forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Psalm 100, NIV)

This psalm was originally used as a song of praise in Israel’s temple. In the Old Testament, we learn all about how God’s chosen people, the Israelites, were supposed to live and worship. God had commanded that they bring all these different kind of sacrifices and offerings when they came to worship at the temple. One of those was the thank offering that we learn about in Leviticus 7. This psalm was used as the thank offering was presented to God.

A group of worshippers stood outside the temple gates, ready to enter the courts. They shouted praise and thanksgiving as they entered, followed by the priests who brought with them the animals to be sacrificed. Meanwhile, there was a much larger crowd outside the temple whose job was to raise loud shouts of praise.

It was a pretty noisy affair, but isn’t that how thanksgiving should be? God has done so much in our lives, how can we keep quiet about it? How do we not keep ourselves from shouting our praise and worship to God? How can we keep silent? Somehow we manage to do it, though, don’t we? But this psalm confronts us with the reality that keeping our thankful worship silent is just not an option for us as God-followers.

The key is found in verse 3 of Psalm 100. When we face the truth that this verse unlocks for us, the option for keeping our thanks and praise silent will be taken off the table.

Psalm 100:3 says, “Know that the LORD is God.” (NIV)

This is the key that can take Thanksgiving from turkey day to everyday. It is the linchpin of everything we offer in our praise and worship of God. It ought to be the driving force of our lives. To know that the Lord is God.

The more you know about something, the more likely it is that that particular something will become an object of your praise.

I don’t know how many of you have ever gone to a Columbus Crew game, but it is really quite an experience. The Crew is the Major League Soccer team in Columbus. Nicki and I have gone to a few games and it’s really fun. But you have to understand that I really don’t know all that much about soccer. I know some of the basic rules, but that’s about it. I don’t know that much about the Crew. I can name a couple of players on the team, maybe. So when we go to these games, it’s pretty much just for the experience. We’re not die-hard Crew fans.

Compare that to some of the other people that you’ll see at Crew Stadium. Soccer fans are a unique breed. If you think football fans are wild, they really don’t compare to true soccer fans. These people show up with painted faces. They’re wearing Crew paraphernalia from top to bottom. They’re extremely vocal. They have these drums that they play constantly from the beginning to the very end of the game. And if the Crew happen to score a goal, they go berserk.

If you stand me and one of these other guys next to each other, you’ll recognize immediately who is the bigger fan. It will be obvious which one is here just for fun and which one has invested himself in knowing this team.

The more we know about something, the more likely it is that that something will become an object of our praise. When a person is truly invested in knowing something, it shows up in their life.

What are you invested in? What do you pursue with intensity? What is your passion? This call to, “Know that the LORD is God,” is a call to invest ourselves in God. To pursue God. To be passionate for God.

For most of us, that doesn’t always describe our lives. But the problem is not that we don’t want that. It’s not that we don’t want to pursue God and invest in God. It’s not a problem of desire. Most of the time our problem is a problem of focus. We can’t fully invest ourselves in pursuing God and knowing God because our focus isn’t on God.

A lot of us can’t know that the Lord is God because we’re focused on the counterfeits.

In our verse, there is a word that is omitted form our English translations. We simply read, “Know that the Lord is God.”

Actually, the original language reads this way. “Know that the Lord, He is God.” It’s obvious why translators would leave this out of our English versions. It’s pretty awkward in our language. But there’s also an emphasis that we can miss if we don’t understand this part of the verse.

Robert Davidson says that, “Since in Hebrew the word ‘he’ occurs emphatically after LORD, the true flavor of these words probably requires that we insert the word ‘alone.’”

Know that the LORD alone is God.

That would have been an important message for the Israelites during the time of the Old Testament. They were surrounded on all sides by peoples and nations who worshipped gods other than the LORD. And more than once, the Israelites allowed themselves to get sucked into worshipping these false gods as well. Instead of investing themselves in God, they invested themselves in pursuing these counterfeit gods.

Things haven’t changed all that much. There is no shortage of counterfeits in our culture. They just look a little different than they did in Old Testament days, but the result is the same. A counterfeit god leads to a counterfeit life.

I’ll ask this question again: What are you invested in knowing? What do you pursue with intensity? What is your passion?

Some of you have a sports team that you are invested in. You are passionate about that team. Does that make the team your god? No.

Some of you have a hobby that you are invested in. Hunting, golf, scrapbooking, music, art, cooking, etc. You are invested in your hobby and you pursue it. Does that make your hobby your god? No.

Some of you have a career goal that you are invested in. Teenagers are looking toward college to achieve that goal. Adults are working up the ladder to achieve that goal. Either way, you are invested in your career objectives. You are pursuing these objectives. Does that make your career your god? No.

But…we all have to understand that these things can become our gods much more easily than we realize. For some of us, these things have crossed a line. They are the gods to be worshipped in our lives. And that transition happens in an easier, much more subtle way that you’d ever imagine.

Some of us are invested in pursuing counterfeit gods. How can you tell if this something has become a god in your life? Because it takes something that should belong to the Lord.

Back to our verse. Know that the LORD is God. Know that the LORD alone is God. It all comes back to the more you know.

The more you know God, the more you realize that he is better than the counterfeits.

The people who used this psalm in Old Testament worship were aware of this truth. It wasn’t a counterfeit god who started a nation from one old man named Abraham. It was no counterfeit god that parted the Red Sea and saved the Israelites from the pursuit of Pharaoh’s army. It wasn’t a counterfeit god brought the city of Jericho to its knees when the walls came down and the Israelite army moved in. It wasn’t a counterfeit god who remained faithful to the people of Israel despite their wandering and grumbling and out-and-out sinfulness.

And in our lives today, it is no counterfeit god who hurts when we hurt. It is no counterfeit god who fights the battles that we cannot fight. No counterfeit god promised that he would never, ever leave us, no matter what. And most of all, it was no counterfeit god who hung on a cross to take all our junk, all our garbage, all our sin and in return, give us purity and perfection and holiness.

Your team didn’t die for you. Your hobby didn’t die for you. Your career didn’t die for you. Your Savior died for you. And the more you know him, the more you realize how every counterfeit god melts away in his presence.

This is why Paul could write, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…” (Philippians 3:8, NIV)

The more you know God, the more you realize that he really is better than any of the counterfeits.

Another focus problem we run into. Some of us can’t truly know that the LORD is God because we’re focused on the counterfeits.

For others of us, our focus is on our problems. Our problems, our struggles, our hurts and our heartaches consume us. We invest in our problems by worrying about them, allowing them to become the gods to be served in our lives. We wake up everyday and bow down at the altar of worry. All day long we worship the gods of stress and anxiety. At night we can’t sleep because the gods of our problems are there, commanding us to worship them some more, so we sacrifice much-needed rest in order to appease their divine demands.

If we are fully invested in our problems, we can’t be fully invested in knowing that the LORD is God.

Notice in our verse that the word LORD appears in all caps. Anytime you see the word LORD all capitalized in the Old Testament, that means that is a translation of the name Yahweh.

Yahweh is a proper name for God. The name Yahweh occurs almost 7,000 times in the Old Testament. Yahweh literally means, “He who will be.” In Psalm 100:3, we are commanded to know that Yahweh is God.

Actually the word “God” is a translation of yet another name of God. We are told to “Know that Yahweh is Elohim.” The name Elohim carries the idea of the God of all creation; God the judge; God the savior; God eternal; the mighty God. It is a name of power.

Know that the Lord is a God of power. Know that God cannot be stopped. Know that there is nothing God cannot do. That’s the idea here.

The more you know God, the more you realize that he is bigger than your problems. If he is the creator God, if he is not limited by time but instead is the eternal God, then exactly what problem do we have in our lives that he cannot handle?

I’ve been visiting a good bit with Ralph and Dorothy Beighle recently. A lot of you know that Ralph recently underwent a very serious surgery and his recovery has been slow and painful. And as I have visited with Ralph and Dorothy, their frustration with the pain and the slow progress has been evident. But I’ll tell you what has been much more evident: the love and the passion they have for God. Even on days when I know Ralph has felt really lousy, he has told me things like, “The Lord has been so good to me.” “The best decision I ever made was to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.” Even in the middle of pain and suffering, Ralph’s words are words of thanksgiving and praise. How is that possible? Because he’s not invested in worshipping the gods of his problems. Instead, he’s invested in knowing that the Lord is God.

Recently at APEX, we focused on Jesus: The Warrior. Not exactly a side of Jesus that we talk about very often. But God really poured our incredible blessing on us that night as we focused on this neglected side of Jesus. In our worship, we all walked over to a table that had the bread and juice of communion spread out on it. And I encouraged everyone to come to the table with their burdens and struggles and problems, but to leave the table without them. Jesus is a warrior who fights for his people and there is not battle in our lives that he is not willing to fight for us.

I really thought we had hit something in this APEX, but later I was sure of it when one of our people came up to me and said, “I left it at the table.” Having talked with her often, I know what “it” is. I know the problems and struggles she’s been facing. And it was incredible to hear her say, “I left it there.”

This room is filled with people who came this morning dragging hurtful baggage along with them. God is calling you to leave it here. His call is for you to know that Yahweh is Elohim. Know that the Lord is God. Even when we’re hurting, we can offer thanks and praise to God because the more we know God, the more we realize that he really is bigger than our problems.

It’s really no mystery why the people who really know God live a life of continual thanksgiving. The more you know God, the more you realize that he is better than the counterfeits that our world offers us. The more you realize that he is truly bigger than any problem or struggle that you’re facing in your life. How can we do anything but thank him?

For a world that doesn’t know God, Thanksgiving will be a day that will come and go this week and then it’ll be on to the madness of the Christmas shopping season. But for the people of God, we have a different option in front of us. Thanksgiving can leave the realm of turkey and cranberries and pumpkin pie on one day a year, and it can translate into a life change. The more you know God, the more thanksgiving becomes your natural language. It simply rolls off your tongue. It spills out into your daily life.

To put it simply, the people who don’t thank God consistently are the people who don’t know God intimately.

If that describes you, we invite you this morning to change the equation. We invite you to come and know a God who gave his all, everything he had, just so he could be with you. He gave his life on a cross so you could live your life to the fullest. Will you come, thanking him for that gift and accepting the forgiving grace that he wants to lavish on you?

Mike Edmisten

Tags: gratitude, idolatry, pain, praise, problems, Psalm_100, Thanksgiving, worship