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!

An Attitude of Gratitude

...giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 5:20).

How do you see life?  Are you a pessimist?  Or an optimist?  Is your glass half empty?  Are you sure somebody’s gonna knock it over?  Or is it half full?  Are you expecting someone to swing by and top it off?  Paul tells us here that when we step back and realize all that Jesus has done for us, we can’t help but be grateful.  That means “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v20).  Think of it this way.  Take another look at that half-full glass.  According to the Bible we don’t deserve the glass much less the water.  Be thankful to God for all that you do have.

It’s an attitude of gratitude.

In one short verse, Paul gives us simple and direct instructions.  The what, the when, the why and the who.  The what: give thanks.   The when: always.  The why: for everything.  The who: To God and Jesus.  If I look back one verse, I see the how: with music (Eph 5:19).  And because of the when (always) and the why (everything), the where is obvious.  EVERYWHERE!  Stop looking at what I don’t have.  Start looking at what I do have.  

It’s an attitude of gratitude.

This all centers around the Greek verb eucharisteo.  It means to be thankful, express gratitude and recognize benefits and blessings.  If you grew up in the Catholic church, this word probably looks pretty familiar.  It’s where we get the Eucharist, the part of the mass where we express our thanks to God for Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.  I find it very interesting that if you drill down in the original language, the term literally means to prosper due to grace.  To lean into the blessing.  When I start to realize that everything I truly need I already have in Christ, I am overwhelmed by thanksgiving.  It’s not a one time moment.  It’s not even an annual holiday of turkey, dressing and football (and I am VERY thankful for that!).  It’s an outlook.  It’s a lifestyle.  It’s an attitude.

It’s an attitude of gratitude.

The apostle continually encourages Jesus’ followers to count their blessings.  Check out just a few of the 41 times we find this word in the NT.  “Give thanks (Gr. eucharisteo) in all circumstances” (1Th 5:18).  Paul never stopped thanking God for his friends in Ephesus (Eph 1:16).  He was incredibly grateful that Priscilla and Aquila stuck their necks out for him (Rom 16:4).  We’re to pray to God with a thankful heart (Phil 4:6).  And as we serve Jesus in everything we do, we’re to be a non-stop thanksgiving machine (Col 3:17).

In many ways, this is the point of the entire letter to the church at Ephesus.  I need to step back and realize who God is and what He’s done for me.  Be swept away by His “Tsunami of Blessings” (Eph 1:3-14).  We can’t begin to wrap our brains around what God’s goodness.  He handpicked us before creation.  He pre-loved us.  He adopted us.  He redeemed us.  He forgave us.  He revealed His will to us in Jesus.  He gave us a fabulous inheritance.  He sealed us with His Spirit.  This passage chapter one is one amazing run-on sentence in Greek.  Paul gets going telling us about all that God has done for Jesus’ followers and he just can’t stop!  He desperately wants us to be thankful.

It’s an attitude of gratitude.

The apostle then tells the Ephesians that he’s continually praying that God will throw their eyes open to everything they have in Jesus (Eph 1:18-20).  The hope.  The riches.  The inheritance.  The mind-blowing power that works in our favor.  Part of our thankfulness is understanding where we would be without God’s blessings.  We were literally the walking dead, stumbling around at Satan’s command (Eph 2:1-2).  All we wanted was to satisfy our own wants and lusts while we shook our fists at heaven (Eph 2:3).  We were the ultimate outsiders (Eph 2:11-12).  Cut off from Christ.  Aliens.  Hopeless.  Without God.  Unless we realize where we were before Jesus, we can’t appreciate all that we have with Him.  Life “BC,” was death.  Before Christ, we had an attitude all right.  A nasty ‘tude.  Chew on that for just a minute.

It was at just that moment that we experienced divine intervention that Paul sums up in two simple words: “But God” (Eph 2:4-10).  But God loved us.  But God made us alive with Jesus.  But God saved us with His descending one-way love called grace.  But God raised us up with Jesus.  But God sat us down right next to Christ in the heavenly seat of honor.  And we didn’t do a stinkin’ thing to earn or deserve all of God’s goodness.  “It is THE gift of God” (Eph 2:8, emphasis added).  Paul continues to remind us of all the blessings we have in Jesus.  And if that’s not all, God “is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Eph 3:20).  Remember the core of the Gospel.  Jesus lived the perfect life that I completely failed to live.  He died the brutal and bloody death for MY sin that I should have died.  He rose to glorious new life that I absolutely do not deserve.  Remember all that God has done.  Realize that He’s going to do.  

It’s an attitude of gratitude.

There’s a HUGE reason why Paul wants the folks in Ephesus to take this ‘tude.  Just down the road in towns like Colossae, Hierapolis and Laodicea, a church-wrecking heresy is on the loose.  A team of spiritual hucksters have duped Jesus’ followers into believing He’s good but not God.  According to these goobers, the radical Rabbi/Carpenter might be able to get us into God’s kingdom but He can’t keep us there.  The only way to ensure our salvation is to follow their complicated list of religious rules.  After writing a letter correcting the Colossians, the apostle fires off another one to the Ephesians.  He knows that once we understand the incredible blessings we already have in Jesus, we’ll explode in thanksgiving.  We won’t buy the heretical snake oil these false teachers are peddling.  We don’t need anything else.  Everything we need we already have in Jesus.  We’ll be grateful.  We’ll be thankful.

It’s an attitude of gratitude.

This is the part where you jump in.  What do you think?  What are you grateful for?  Drop a comment below and join the conversation.