What If We Thanked Him with Joy?

Introduction

In this last service of the year, Claude Greder opens Psalm 100 to invite you to look back on 2025 with one intention: to thank God, and to thank Him with joy. In five verses, the psalmist traces a path — shouting for joy, knowing that the Lord is God, entering His gates with praise. The preacher adds a simple pastoral conviction: the joy of the Lord is our strength, and thanksgiving is the best way to end a year in order to begin the next one well.

Message Outline

1. Let us be invited into joyful worship (Psalm 100:1-2)

The God we serve is a "blessed God" (1 Timothy 1:11), and the people who serve Him should be a happy people. The atmosphere of heaven is an atmosphere of joy.
"The joy of the LORD is my strength" (Nehemiah 8:10) can be understood in two ways: the joy that God gives us through His blessings, and the joy that we give Him when we draw near to Him.
Zephaniah 3:17 says that God will have "great delight" in you — the German and English versions translate that He will dance for you. Imagine the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, dancing a round dance when you arrive.
It's the same joy found in the three parables of Luke 15 (the sheep, the coin, the prodigal son): heaven rejoices when God finds a heart that opens its door to Him. According to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, "you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in Christ Jesus" — that is His joy, and you are its fruit.

2. Know that the LORD is God, and that we belong to Him (Psalm 100:3)

He is the only creator — omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. He knew you before the world was created, He had you in Christ before Adam lost you, and He found you again in Christ through His sacrifice.
He cares for all people through His common grace (Genesis 8:22, Matthew 5:45), but He holds a particular love for His beloved: "I have called you by your name" (Isaiah 43:1), "I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:15), "He who touches you touches the apple of His eye" (Zechariah 2:8).
The great danger, when you grow up in the house of God, is familiarity — the testimony of the solitaire diamond saleswoman in London illustrates this risk well: when you get used to something precious, you eventually treat it as a given.
Don't grow accustomed to the multiplying baptisms, to services overflowing with the presence of God, to gifts of the Spirit that heal, to the Lord's Supper that puts us face to face with the body and blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:27-30), nor to your brother, nor to your sister sitting next to you who is precious in God's eyes.

3. Enter His gates with praise (Psalm 100:4-5)

Celebrate Him, bless His name. Sing with the old hymn: "Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done."
Give thanks in all things, for this is God's will concerning you (1 Thessalonians 5:18) — even in what has been painful. Joseph, restored, names his son Ephraim, saying "God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction" (Genesis 41:52).
Claude testifies: his own tunnel of burnout, his years underwater, he did not love them at the time; but today he can say thank you for that tunnel where he learned to know God better.
Verse 5 begins with "for." That is the reason for it all: "the LORD is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His faithfulness endures to all generations." He was faithful with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; He was faithful with those who came before us; He will be faithful with our sons and daughters in 2026.

Key Takeaways

God is a blessed God — His joy is not only what He gives you, it is also what you give Him when you draw near to Him.
What Christ did on the cross — washing you, sanctifying you, justifying you — is what makes up the Father's joy. You are the fruit of the work of His soul.
Familiarity is a danger: when the precious becomes ordinary, we stop treating it as precious. This applies to baptisms, the presence of God, the Lord's Supper, and to your brother sitting next to you.
Counting God's blessings is not a pious exercise but an exercise of memory — putting in black and white, on paper, what He has done this year.
Gratitude is God's will for you in all things, including in the tunnel — because one day, like Joseph, you will say "God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."

Personal Application

Take a sheet of paper this week and count, like Claude, your blessings from 2025. How many pages can you fill?
Is there something precious — a brother, a service, a baptism, an answered prayer — that you have started to take for granted? What would change if you looked at it again as precious?
Buy a card, write the first name of a brother or sister from your congregation, and give them a few words of good wishes for 2026. Will you commit to praying for that person once a week this year?
What tunnel in your life has been painful, in which you are only now beginning to perceive that God has made you fruitful there? Can you, today, give Him thanks for that tunnel?
Knowing that Zephaniah says God dances for you, do you dare believe that you bring Him joy just as you are today — imperfect, still on the journey, but washed and justified?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Psalm 100 so central in the Christian tradition?

This psalm of praise is called a "psalm of thanksgiving" in its title. In five verses it holds a true theology of thanksgiving: an invitation (shout for joy), a confession (God is the creator and we belong to Him), and a motive (His goodness and His faithfulness). This is why it has been sung, in the English-speaking world, in a thousand different forms — it condenses in few words what our approach to the Lord should be.

What does "the joy of the Lord is my strength" mean?

This verse from Nehemiah 8:10 can be read in two ways. First, it is the joy that God gives you through the blessings He grants you that makes you strong. Second, it is the joy that you give to God — like a child who brings home a good report card to his father and sees his smile — that becomes your strength. The two readings meet: the closer you draw to His joy, the more you are strengthened.

How do you give thanks to God when the year has been difficult?

1 Thessalonians 5:18 says "give thanks in all things," not "for all things." Gratitude does not mean loving the trial, it means keeping trust that God is working within the trial. Joseph names his son Ephraim because he eventually perceived the fruitfulness of his affliction. Perhaps your tunnel is not yet over; but the promise holds: one day, you will be able to say "God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."

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