That's the Ticket!

“Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him; bless His name!” (Ps 100:4).

The Super Bowl. The Final Four. The Olympics. A great concert. These are tough tickets. Demand is high. Supply is low. And scalpers have a field day. But those are nothing compared to entering the presence of Almighty God. You may have a fat wallet but big bucks won’t get you into see the Lord. There’s no one to bribe, no “I know a guy,” no Stub Hub to make it happen.

The songwriter behind the 100th Psalm tips us off to the secret way in. “Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him; bless His name!” (Ps 100:4). If you want access to our holy God, leave your cash at home. The key to entering His presence is an attitude of gratitude. Thankfulness is the ticket!

The psalmist paints a picture of the temple in Jerusalem. It was THE place you went to worship the God of Israel in Israel. The temple sat on the top of plateau in the heart of the city. You literally had to go up to get to God. Once on the temple mount, you had to use one of the eight gates to get in. That’s where you “enter His gates with thanksgiving” (v4). After that you walked through a series of courts or plazas, getting closer and closer to God’s presence as you go. At this point, you’re rolling through “His courts with praise” (v4). 

But you’re not getting past the turnstiles without your price of admission. What you need isn’t a ticket in your hand but an attitude in your heart and and word in your mouth. It’s an expression of sincere “thanksgiving” (v4). The psalmist uses the Hebrew word towdah, which describes a specific kind of song of thankfulness and praise by the entire worship team or choir. This tune is a confession of God’s amazing grace in the face of our own horrific sinfulness. Thankfulness isn’t the only way we praise God but a VERY important way we praise Him!

This isn’t just a generic gratitude and an unexpressed warm fuzzy feeling. This term emphasizes our shocking sin and just how incredibly undeserving we are for all that He’s done at the same time expressing God’s overwhelming and overflowing love and grace to us. It’s a combo confession of our badness and His goodness. 

You do know you’re sinful, right? Talking about sin may not be politically correct but it is biblically correct. Everyone who’s ever walked the planet has fallen short of God’s perfect standard (Rom 3:10-12, 23). If that’s not bad enough, we’re rebels and terrorists against God’s kingdom (Rom 5:10; Col 1:21). 

You do know the Lord’s good, right? Despite our civil war against the throne of God, Jesus goes to battle and defeats our sin for us (Rom 5:8). He does for us what we could never do for ourselves. He lived the perfect life we failed to live. He died the death for our sin and rebellion we should have died. He rose to new life we don’t deserve. Yeah, we have EVERY reason to be thankful!

Thanksgiving isn’t something the Pilgrims and Native Americans cooked up back in 1621. God made it a regular part of worship for His chosen people (Lev 7:12-15; 22:29). Repentance and gratitude is meant to be expressed so everyone can hear it. King David wrote a hit song about he loves “proclaiming thanksgiving (Heb. towdah) aloud, and telling all Your wondrous deeds” (Ps 26:7). Did you catch that? Thankfulness proclaimed. Gratitude never goes unsaid. Say it loud. Say it proud.

We see this combo expression of repentance and thanksgiving throughout the OT. At the resettlement of Jerusalem, Ezra told Jewish men to get rid of their pagan girlfriends as part of their confession of sin and worship of God (Ez 10:11). A few years later, the people openly repented of their sin and praised their God when they celebrated the rebuilding of the city walls (Neh 12:27, 31, 38, 40). 

We celebrate Thanksgiving annually by eating a meal. Ever heard of someone celebrating it who WAS the meal? From the guts of the a fish, Jonah sang, “But I with a voice of thanksgiving (Heb. towdah) will sacrifice to You” (Jnh 2:9). The fugitive prophet openly repented of his rebellion and thanked God for His goodness. Can you imagine what was going through that fish’s brain when it heard that coming from its belly? No wonder it barfed Jonah up on the beach! He not only had the ticket out of the fish’s mouth but into God’s presence.

So the kind of thanksgiving the psalmist is calling for here is two-part praise. Step one, admit your sin. Confess your crime. Say it. Out loud. Step two, tell God how amazing He is. Praise Him. Say it. Out loud. Check out the Message’s take on this verse. “Enter with the password: ‘Thank You!’ Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank Him. Worship Him.” (v4 The Message). Thanksgiving is the password. When it comes to entering God’s presence, that’s the golden ticket!