Joyful Worship: Finding Unshakeable Joy in an Unchanging God - Psalm 100

Good morning. As followers of Christ Jesus, our Lord and God,

we always have a reason to be joyful and thankful before Him.

My name is Pastor Simon Flynn, and here at Dillingham Moravian Church,

we delight in making disciples for Christ as we learn God's Word together with you.

A couple of days ago, I called in to the helpline for our mortgage company.

The lady who answered was very polite, enthusiastic for helping me,

answered my questions quickly, and wished me a good day as I hung up.

What I did not tell you was that there was a disclaimer at the beginning of

the call saying that the agent was AI.

If I had not been told that she was not human, then I would not have any idea,

with exception maybe to answering my questions really fast.

Not only is AI being used in customer help,

by companies But also AI is being used greatly in social media,

It's getting so hard to tell what image or person is real anymore I've seen

reels and videos with people talking and doing some routine And it was all AI,

I could not tell the difference,

my point is is that human beings have always had the capability to be untruthful

and deceive but with ai it is now skyrocketed,

yet god is always true he is always faithful and he is always good why because

he never changes let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your merciful love in Jesus Christ and that

your love, your faithfulness, your goodness, all of who you are never changes.

You are who you are.

And we are so grateful for that. Help us, precious Father, to understand your truth today.

Grant us your Spirit so that we can have your wisdom, and your understanding,

and the ability to put into practice what you want us to know today.

Father, we thank you. In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

Turn with me today to Psalm 100, verse 1 through 5. Psalm 100, verse 1 through 5.

Psalms 100 · chapter mention Psalms 100 · chapter mention

Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth Serve the Lord with gladness Come before

Him with joyful singing Know that the Lord Himself is God It was He who has

made us And not we ourselves,

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 loving kindness is everlasting and

His faithfulness to all generations.

There are three major points from this psalm that I want to bring to your attention.

The first truth is that as people of God, we can worship the Lord with joy because

of the unchangeable character of God.

In verse 1, the psalmist wrote, Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before Him with joyful singing.

Psalm 100 began with the command to all the peoples of the earth to join in

with the congregation of Israel to worship the Lord with joyful shouts to the Lord.

Here at DMC, we're kind of subdued in our singing, which is all right.

But the people of Israel were commanded to give shouts of joyful praise to the

Lord along with their joyful singing. And the question is why?

Why was the world also called to shout joyfully to the Lord?

The key to this question is found in the name of the Lord, Yahweh.

Yahweh means the one who is the absolute and unchangeable one,

the ever-existing, ever-living, as completely self-consistent and unchangeable.

Lord Yahweh is the great I Am who lives always in the presence.

And His identity is founded only in Himself.

When Moses came before the burning bush, Moses asked the Lord,

Who shall I say has sent me?

And the Lord responded, I am that I am has sent you.

Meaning that the Lord is the only one like Himself.

There is no one else like Him, and there is no other God.

And back to our question in Psalm 100 about why the world was also invited to

worship Yahweh with joyful shouts and singing.

You see, the psalmist recognized a vital truth.

God did not just belong to the Hebrews.

Yahweh is the creator and sustainer of the entire universe and is the only God

there ever was, is, and will be.

And thus, Yahweh is the God of the entire world.

And therefore God through the psalmist was inviting the nations of the world,

to come and join with Israel in praise.

This is one of the Old Testament glimpses where we see the Gentiles and the

nations being called to a relationship with God.

There's another aspect of Yahweh's character that is paramount to why the entire

world should worship him with joyful praise.

And that key trait is that, and I'm going to say this slowly, Yahweh is.

Yahweh is. The Lord Yahweh is completely unchangeable.

Since the fall, all a creation physically changes in some way through growth

and development and death. This is the way of life now.

Beyond the physical changes, even spiritual and supernatural changes happen.

Isaiah 14, 12-15 prophesied, How have you fallen from heaven,

O star of the morning, sun of the dawn?

You have been cut down to earth. You have weakened the nations.

But you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne

above the stars of the sky.

And I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the recesses of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds and I will make myself like the Most High.

Nevertheless, you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit.

Lucifer, the star of the morning, the son of dawn, was created good as the prince of God's angels.

However, Lucifer or Satan fell into sin by lusting after God's job and rebelled against God.

And in Genesis chapter 3, we know that Satan deceived Eve to rebel against God

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

and gave Adam the opening to rebel against God himself.

And as a result of Adam's sin, all of human race was spiritually changed from

being alive in God to being spiritually dead until Christ died on the cross

and rose from the dead, restoring what had been broken.

My point is, is that all of creation, even angelic beings, change in multiple ways.

But this is what I want you to hear. God does not change. And this is hugely important.

God is and has always been and always will be God.

God has never changed in His love and His faithfulness. And He never,

ever, ever breaks His promises.

True happiness or joy is not based upon circumstances or getting our wants met.

Rather, joy is derived through the deep and certain knowledge that God is the

unchangeable, sovereign Lord of the universe.

Our joy is founded upon knowing that God's nature is faithful, loving, and good.

In His sovereignty, the Lord Yahweh has a plan and meaning for our lives.

God's nature and character never changes.

And this is why we, you and I, can have complete hope and faith in God because

His actions and words are based on His character, which never change.

This is why we can worship the Lord with gladness. The second point I want you

to see in this passage is that as part of God's people, we must know that the Lord is our God.

When Shrek, a Merino sheep, went missing from a New Zealand farm in 1998, he was presumed dead.

But six years later, he was found hiding in caves on South Island.

We didn't know he was there, John Periam, Shrek's owner, told BBC in 2004.

He looked like some biblical creature.

In evading capture, the sheep also eluded shearing.

When he was found, Shrek had 60 pounds of wool, enough to make 20 large men's

suits, according to the BBC.

Shrek went on to become the subject of several children's books.

In May 2004, he met with the then New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark.

His owner commented, He was just an ordinary sheep, went AWOL and hid.

And when he was found, he became the darling of the nation.

I share this with you because we, as the people of God, we are the sheep of God.

And like sheep, we can run astray. We can hide from God.

But our shepherd always finds us.

Psalm 100, verse 3 proclaimed, Know that the Lord himself is God.

Psalms 100:3

It is he who made us and not we ourselves.

We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

The psalmist command in this psalm for God's people to know that the Lord is God.

The name that is used here for God is Elohim, the absolute and true God.

This name tells us that God has complete mastery and absolute power over everything.

In all the universe, God is completely sovereign.

Our family has two cats. One is a Siberian forest cat by the name of Belka,

who is a little sweetie, especially to me.

Our other cat, Snow or Snowball, we think is a Himalayan crossed with a Siamese.

And at least towards me, she has plenty of attitude.

Now, I am not, definitely not God.

Snowball belongs to me, and I am her master. And yet she continues to act like

she is my master and owner and boss of my life.

Snowball will try to bite my feet and yowl at me if she thinks I'm late with

her food, or if she believes I'm ignoring her, or she wants to be played with

and wrestled with. She really likes that.

The truth is, is that even though we love our cats and care deeply for them, they're still our cats.

We are their masters, whether they like it or not.

And this concept of being master, even over those who do not,

that do belong to their master, but don't wish to know it.

This is what the psalmist in Psalm 100 verse 1 is about.

Psalms 100:1

Psalm has illustrated the truth

of God being our master by writing about Elohim in two different ways.

First off, that God made His people Israel, and they belong to Him,

and they are the people of God.

It may also be inferred that God is the creator of all, but in this context,

the psalmist was definitely referring to Israel.

Not only is Israel's God's property and slaves, but their whole identity comes

from Elohim and not from themselves.

We do have to remember, though, that God is a wonderful master.

Secondly, psalmist identifies Israel as the sheep of his pasture.

David in Psalm 23, saying, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul. He guides me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake.

Sheep follow the shepherd. Sheep belong to the shepherd and obey his will.

Again, we see this same theme. The identity of the sheep is wrapped up completely

in the identity of their shepherd.

Sheep's life and future all belong in the shepherd's hands. The sheep are not

their own. They belong to the shepherd.

The psalmist was saying the same truth about the people of God.

They are his sheep and his people.

And as those who were bought by the precious shed blood of Christ and responded

to God's grace with faith in Jesus Christ alone,

According to Romans 11, we have been grafted spiritually into the nation of Israel.

We belong to Christ, our Yahweh shepherd, and we are His.

There are two applications that I see from Psalm 100 verse 3.

Psalms 100:3

The first truth that we can apply to ourselves is that the foundation of the

Christian life is the complete confidence that the Lord is God and He is our Master.

Without this truth, we have nothing.

All of life is created by Him and derived from Him. We are His.

God is our master, and He is the absolute sovereign.

Everything we are, everything we have, all of our possessions,

even our physical breath that we take, and the fact that our hearts still beat

this morning comes from God.

In Christ Jesus, we who believe in Him have been given the new life of God and

blessed with a relationship with God as our Heavenly Father,

and we as His beloved children.

I've used this quote from Pastor Rob before, which is that in authority, God is our Master.

In relationship, God is our Father.

And that explanation from Rob has helped me better sort out my understanding of God.

But make no mistake, God is our good and loving Father, but we must never forget

that He still is our Master.

Many Christians lean too far towards God being our loving Father and do not

honor Him as their Master.

Then on the other side, others revere Him highly as Master, but they lose sight

of God's gracious love as their Heavenly Father.

We have to have both securely together in our minds and hearts.

Secondly, it is also essential to remember that in Christ we are Christ's sheep,

the sheep of his pasture.

And here's what I'm getting at. We belong in Christ's pasture.

The problem is, like sheep, we like to wander over to the edge of Christ's pasture,

so to speak, to look over to other pastures with longing in our hearts,

yearning to go over there because it seems better.

Here's the truth. It is categorically not better.

Remember those other pastors belong to Satan and he is the father of lies.

Deception is his nature.

The devil makes things in combination with our fallen flesh to look attractive,

when there really are only lures to catch us so that we can be enslaved in a

prison of spiritual darkness, without hope, without life.

Satan uses many tactics to get us to leave the safety of Christ's flock and

pasture, like tempting a Christian that drink or that drug will answer all our problems.

Or for us men, the temptation might be that the women we see on social media

or TV are more attractive or desirable than our wives, or if you're unmarried, than your girlfriend.

And if we're not careful, that temptation can lead us to commit adultery with our thoughts.

Look at porn or other women with lust. Maybe someone else, for someone else,

it's a better job or better house or car or someone else's wife or daughter.

We look at what someone else has and we covet what they have.

I'm getting off the sheep motif here, but like the fishing lures we use to catch

fish on Lake Aleknegeg or the rivers around,

here in Alaska, Satan's tactics, and there are so many of them are meant to

be tantalizing lures to hook us and get us to sin and remove us from the presence of Christ.

And even though in Christ we are secure in our place in Christ's flock,

we can wander away from Him if we're not alert and not listening to our Lord Shepherd.

But here is also a comforting truth. Christ Jesus will never leave us to being lost.

He will come after us, and He will find us again.

Yet we also must repent of our sins, turn away from them, and go with our Lord

Shepherd wherever He leads, and stay with Him.

The last truth I want to point out to you is that as Christ's people and flock,

we are to be thankful for God and praise Him for His goodness and faithfulness.

A parent, it is easy to get frustrated when our children yell and fight with

each other or are disobedient to their parents.

And if we focus on these negative aspects of our children, we will lose our

joy and not be good parents ourselves.

When my boys, Jonathan and Paul, are acting badly, instead of focusing on their bad behaviors,

I am learning to stop and intentionally remind myself all that I love about

them, their good characteristics, the good memories we've had together.

This causes me to be so thankful to God for our two little boys.

Another thing I'm learning to do is to praise my boys more for what they have

been doing well and reminding them what I'm thankful for them.

Because honestly, they don't know what we're thankful for them unless we,

their parents, tell them.

Psalm 100, verse 4 through 5, continued, Enter His gates with thanksgiving and

Psalms 100:4–5

His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him.

Bless His name, for the Lord is good.

His lovingkindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness to all generations.

Seen here is of the multitudes entering the gates and courts of Jerusalem,

which we need to remember is God's city.

God's people and the worshipers from the nations stream into the city with thanks

to God and praise, blessing the name of God.

The question is, why are the believers of Israel and the nations called to worship God in Jerusalem?

And here's what this passage says, because the Lord is good,

and His chesed, His lovingkindness, is everlasting, and His faithfulness is to all generations.

Now, there's no indication in the psalm which event the psalmist was writing about.

However, one commentator explained that it was used in the temple with sacrifices of praise.

The expressions in this psalm reflect the preceding enthronement psalms that

celebrate the Lord's rule.

The psalmist exhorted the congregation to serve the Lord with gladness because

He is the Creator, and to enter His temple with much thanksgiving because He is good and faithful.

One of my favorite verses is from Lamentation 3, verse 19-24,

where Jeremiah wrote, Remember my affliction and my wandering,

the wormwood and bitterness.

Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down with within me,

and here's what i want you to pay attention to this i recall to mine therefore,

i have hope here it is the lord's loving kindness indeed never ceases,

for his compassion never fail,

they are new every morning great is your faithfulness.

Christians, we often thank God for the blessings that God gives us,

for our homes, our jobs, our families, our finances.

And as much as we should thank God for these things, we should,

there's something even more important to thank God for, and that's Himself.

Unlike any of us, God has no bad or evil characteristics.

He is completely good, and His goodness to humanity, to us, even when we don't

deserve it, knows no bounds.

We, you and I, must remind ourselves continually of God's goodness,

of His great works on our behalf, and the Scripture verses that point to who

God is and what He has done and will do.

As we focus on the Lord's faithfulness and goodness, we cannot help but be full

of thanksgiving, even in the dark times.

And as we remember the fullness of God and dwell upon the goodness and mercy

of the Almighty, the more we will see the mercies of God in new ways every single day.

Remembrance of God brings hope. Hope brings grateful thanksgiving,

and thanksgiving leads us to praise Him.

It's so easy to dwell on a negative about ourselves and our situations or about other people.

And when we dwell on these negative things, we work them over and over again

in our mind until we mess up our thinking towards God and we sin.

Satan wants us to sin, to change our thinking about Christ.

Christ asks us to dwell deeply upon not just His blessings to us,

but to think on God Himself so much that gratitude and wonder for God saturates our heart.

What I want you to understand is that as we focus on the Lord and make Him our

treasure, the problems and hardships that we face, although still there,

shrink and change in our perspective because we are now seeing things through God's eyes.

And this will cause our hearts and minds to erupt with thanksgiving.

And this is where our peace and joy comes from, and this is how we can live a life of praise to God.

So what is God teaching us today? That first of all, true joy or happiness—.

Not from circumstances or what we have, but from the unchangeable nature of God.

God is always and always has been and always will be faithful and loving to His people.

We may not always understand God's love, but it doesn't change God's nature.

Secondly, God is our good master and He is our Lord Shepherd.

Lastly, we are to live in continual thankfulness and praise as we remember God's faithfulness.

See, the life of a Christian is one of total focus on God in Christ.

The big idea that summed up the totality of the apostle's life was his words,

to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Was Paul's single-minded focus on Christ, that was the secret of his contentment

in a life of praise in all circumstances of life.

The question I want to leave us with, and that's including me,

is Christ your treasure and main focus in life? Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the privilege to be able to pray to you,

to be able to praise you and thank you.

Thank you that you are faithful, that you are good, and that you are always

with us. We thank you that we're faithful,

we as people of God get the privilege to be able to go out into the nations,

go out in our whole neighborhoods, our communities now are places where we can.

Share the gospel with the nations so that they can come and praise God together with us.

Pray that we do that, Lord. Help us.

Use us for your glory and honor. I pray, Lord, for every single person who is

listening to this sermon, that you would work in their life,

draw them to you, show them that you love them, show them that you alone are worthy of praise,

and that you are the one they should live for.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

I'll leave you with this benediction from Romans 15, verse 13.

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,

so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope.

Have a wonderful Sunday. May the Lord bless you.