The Goodness of God Enables a Steadfast Heart (2)

Intro

Not everything in the Christian life is easy. Living a life of following Christ can often be very difficult. Sometimes, the world will persecute you. Sometimes, the enemy will bring trials into your life. Sometimes, the Lord requires us to follow Him into hard places. And still other times, the difficulties of everyday life seem too much to endure.

In a former church, we were going through some really hard times. There was a particular time we were enduring hardship when our lead deacon came ill with terminal brain cancer. We learned he had brain cancer in February, and he passed that August. He was only 64. It was in this season that I wrote about following God in a hard time. And it was in this season that I wrestled with what it meant to lean not on the goodness of my circumstances, but to lean on the goodness of God.

So as we start, I want us to take a look at this Psalm in its entirety right out of the gate, because I want you to see how the structure of this Psalm informs how we read it and understand it.

Now what we have to understand about this Psalm is that it is about two primary things: Number one by a long shot is God. Number two is our heart toward God and life in general. But the application comes from the motivation for our praise.

So if I could, right up from the start, just show you how this Psalm works.

One pastor put it this way: The way we are meant to live as believers in Christ can be found within the structure of this Psalm, how it’s formed. Let’s look

Exhortación a la gratitud

Salmo de alabanza.

100 Cantad alegres a Dios, habitantes de toda la tierra. 2 Servid a Jehová con alegría; Venid ante su presencia con regocijo.

3 Reconoced que Jehová es Dios; Él nos hizo, y no nosotros a nosotros mismos; Pueblo suyo somos, y ovejas de su prado.

4 Entrad por sus puertas con acción de gracias, Por sus atrios con alabanza; Alabadle, bendecid su nombre. 5 Porque Jehová es bueno; para siempre es su misericordia, Y su verdad por todas las generaciones.

Psalm 100:1–2 (ESV)

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!

is undergirded by…

Psalm 100:3 (ESV)

Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Psalm 100:4 ESV

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

is undergirded by…

Psalm 100:5 ESV

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

In other words, we have to understand something… Singing to the Lord… Giving Him thanks… Serving Him… Praising Him… Is all of that set upon a foundation of whether or not our lives are going well? No, brothers and sisters. Our praise for God is based upon the foundation of God’s goodness.

So that’s what we have to understand right up at the front, that God is good and eternally worthy of praise. This truth must inform every aspect of our lives, as we seek to glorify Him with all that we are. But we all too often base our praise of God on how our week has been. We walk in with hearts that are heavy from a difficult week and we refuse to preach to our own hearts, “you dead heart, come alive!”

Because the truth is, the heart is a powerful thing.

Recognize the Power of the Heart

Growing up, we had a few horses. They were mostly yard-art, but we had a few horses. One that you could ride. You know, a horse is a very powerful animal. A horse is not an animal to be trifled with. You must have a certain respect toward horses, because it doesn’t take much for them to hurt you. Think about this. Take a thousand-pound horse. At least 40 percent, perhaps up to 55 percent of that weight is just muscle. That means a horse on the smaller side of horses is somewhere between 400 to 550 pounds of muscle. That’s powerful. And that power can hurt you… Or, if you take the time, you can use a horse for good. There’s a process called breaking… To train a horse to get it ready to ride, you literally have to break that horse of its fear of man, and teach it to obey its master. Much like our hearts…

You see, our hearts are powerful things, aren’t they? We understand the heart to be the center of our emotions, and we understand that our emotions are strong determining factors in almost every decisions we make. Who will you marry? What career path will you take?

The heart has a big pull on the way we navigate life. And some would say that we are to do everything we can to remove the heart from our decision making in order to make the most objective, logical, and therefore best decisions.

But to live in such a way, while one may think it could be a very Christian way to live, is not quite God’s intention for us. In fact, God gave us our hearts, and gave us emotions for a reason. Let’s look at what else the Bible has to say about the heart and our emotions.

Proverbs 3:5–6 (ESV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

But it also says…

Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

That brings us to…

Proverbs 27:19 (ESV)

As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.

So we see in just these few verses, the bible has a lot to say about the heart. It is a powerful, powerful force. And that’s why God has so much to say to us about our hearts. In Jeremiah we see it is deceitful. We see that those who are purehearted will be blessed. We see that we are supposed to trust in the Lord with our hearts. We see that God gives us NEW hearts in Christ. We see that our hearts reflect who we truly are…

And that’s why we have to pay close attention to what we feed our hearts.

Feed Your Heart with Truth

Proverbs 4:23 (ESV)

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

The Scriptures tell us to protect our hearts. And just how do we do that? We protect our hearts from things that cause it to have malformed affections for the things of this earth or others. So many of us have sick hearts. Do you have a sick heart?

Think about it. How many of us have been manipulated, mistreated, and now we have trouble trusting others, or even trusting God? The Scriptures tell us to protect our hearts with all vigilance. Do not allow your heart to be misled by those who would treat it and you poorly.

Because truthfully, when we allow our hearts to be malformed by bad influences, bad friends, toxic relationships, we set our hearts up to believe bad things about our perfect Father in Heaven. And truthfully, that is the most important relationship we have.

Do we question our relationships and question whether they give us more trust in God or if they harm our trust in God? Or do we question the activities we do and truly weigh them with our relationship with God and consider if they are helps or hindrances to loving God and others well?

And that’s really what the meat of Psalm 100 is all about.

Psalm 100 (ESV)

A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Again, we spoke of the structure of this psalm and how it is set up to inform the way that we go through life. Consider:

Our singing, our praise, our joy are guided NOT by our circumstances… They are guided by the truth of who GOD is! We must remind ourselves and remind one another when life gets you down how good the Father is. Because if we allow our hearts to take on a false message about God through our circumstances, it will rob us of our true joy, and we will be led astray in a myriad of ways. A false understanding of God and His goodness leads only toward sin.

So we have to understand this progression right here, and this is not original to me…

Knowing truth of God’s goodness leads to Joyful affections

Our hearts are powerful things, therefore, we must feed them with truth, not lies.

Our hearts inform and drive so many of our decisions, our relationships, etc., therefore we must make sure that what informs our hearts is good and Godward.

Now this is not saying there is no time for lamentation, but the overall trajectory of our lives is joy. That’s why Paul says in 2 Cor 6.10

2 Corinthians 6:10 (ESV)

as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;

Paul knew there was a place for a downcast heart within the Christian life, but a downcast heart is not an excuse for a joyless heart.

Instead, we preach to our hearts the truth of God’s goodness, reminding our hearts that there is reason to hope and be joyful, for we serve a good God, who will make all things right in the end.

I am reminded of a book that I read to Sawyer Kate from time to time. It’s about a family that undergoes loss. And throughout the story, the boy is keeping track of the moon and its different phases. “Today, the moon looks like a crescent, but daddy tells me the moon is always round.” At some points in the book, they are happy and joyful, others, they are sad. All the while, though the moon changes its phases, the boy is reminded, “The moon is always round.”

And in the most gripping moment of the book when the boy and his family are saying goodbye to their loved one at a funeral service, the father asks the son, “What shape is the moon?” The boy replies, “The moon is always round,” The dad asks back, “And what does that mean?” The boy says, “It means, ‘God is always good.’”

A heart that is steadfastly set upon the truth of God’s goodness is better built to withstand the deepest storms of life and come out on the other side.

Do not forget that, Christian.

Perhaps you are not a Christian, but you are learning about Christ this morning. Perhaps you wonder what makes Christians different, or why it is Christians seem joyful all the time, even in the midst of trials and loss… It’s because of this truth that is displayed in Psalm 100. Look at how the joy of the Lord works…

Psalm 100:1–2 ESV

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!

and Psalm 100:4

Psalm 100:4 ESV

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

These are given foundation by:

Psalm 100:3 ESV

Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

God is our Creator; Owner; Shepherd

Psalm 100:5 ESV

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

God is good; loves us forever; faithful forever.

Therefore we can engage in obedience to God in a way that is truly joyful. It’s not fake Christianity to recognize that your heart at times works actively against you in your will to be obedient to God. So if you’re not feeling much like a Christian, brother or sister, the answer is not to hide your face or not show up… The answer is that you need your Christian brothers and sisters to know the difficulty you’re going through, and to allow them into your world.

At times, we need our brothers and sisters in the Lord to surround us and care for us. To help us keep our eyes on the cross of Christ.

Galatians 6:2 (ESV)

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

When our hearts are fed with truth and the emphasis on God’s goodness, we are then able to allow our hearts to run unleashed, unbridled into joyous obedience of the Lord!

Let Your Heart Partake in Joyful Obedience

Knowing truth of God’s goodness -> Joyful affections -> Joyful acts

When our hearts are fed with truth, we are enabled, driven, motivated, and fueled to glorify God with our very being, when we have chosen to make Him the ultimate object of our affections, that is when He is most glorified within us!

When God is the ultimate desire of your heart, you can let it run freely toward Him. You can let your heart pursue the Lord, and you will desire to be obedient to the Father, and you will find the true freedom that your heart longs for.

Our hearts long for freedom. But there’s a problem in all of our hearts. Our hearts become ensnared by sin. And sin is a false freedom. Sin makes you think you are free, but the truth is that sin holds us like a hostage.

There are many sins and false freedoms we chase after. In essence, it is sin that our hearts get swept up by all too often. Whether that is laziness in comfort, indulgence, competitive backbiting, gossip, selfish ambitions… We think these things give us life, but they actually take it. They seem exciting in the moment, and they give us a surge of adrenaline, but truthfully, like a bad habit, they rob us of life.

But when we train our hearts to desire God, we find true freedom. It is then that we no longer desire the evils of this world. At that point, it looks more like psalm 37.4

Psalm 37:4 (ESV)

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

But we must keep an eye on the affections of our hearts, brothers and sisters. Sin leads us not into true, fulfilling joy, but a hollow happiness that ends in hell. Sure, chase after sin all you want, but know that the just fruits of that sin is not a fulfilled life, but an empty one.

And the eternal fate given for a life of sin is eternal separation from God in hell. Do not hesitate in turning to Christ. Each day that passes under conviction from the Holy Spirit without response serves only to harden the heart against Him.

Today, if you have not surrendered your life to Christ, and called upon His Name for salvation, then I urge you: turn from your sin and follow Christ!

He is the only true source of joy. Not in sin, not in drugs or alcohol, not in entertainment, not in the things of this earth. Only Christ.

Turn to Him today. If you are a believer, continue to focus on Him and Him alone. Praise Him for who He is, not how you feel. Serve Him for who He is, not what you feel like doing.

“Only one life, it will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” - CT Studd, missionary.