Here are some questions based on last Sunday’s sermon text (Psalm 100), in case they’re helpful to you for personal growth or group discussion…

• [1-2] This is “a Psalm for giving thanks” to God. Your thanksgiving is the joyful, self-giving response of your whole life to God for his gifts to you. These verses do not describe a reluctant thanksgiving, but an enthusiastic one. According to verses 1-2, what should our thanksgiving look like? Compare and/or contrast this with how you might have learned the proper manners of thanksgiving as a child.

• [3] Yahweh is God (you are not); Yahweh made you (you did not make yourself); you belong to Yahweh (you do not own yourself). In what ways have you been living as if you were self-made and had no one to answer to but yourself? Can you see the Good News of the whole Bible summarized in this verse? How might your life change if you believed this verse was Good News, or believed it more consistently throughout your life?

• [4] What are you thankful for? To whom do you give thanks? “The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.” (G. K. Chesterton). What do you think about that?

• [5] How do you know that Yahweh is good, that his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations? How do you know that the Triune God loves to give all good gifts to his people? To what evidence can you point? When you doubt his goodness, love, and faithfulness, where do you look to be reassured of these things?

• A Psalm like this is relatively easy to memorize. Why would you memorize passages of Scripture? If you have children, do you help them to memorize passages of Scripture?