Songs of Praise

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. But we're gonna start with reading, I know, an entire chapter. It's only six verses though. Isaiah chapter 12. You will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. With joy you shall draw water from the wells of salvation, and you will say in that day, give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted, sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously. Let this be made known in all the earth. Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. It's a wonderful way to wrap up this series, because this song of praise that we have just read in Isaiah chapter 12 is the one that we will be singing. We can sing it now, but we will also be singing on that day. Regardless of the mess that we are in, regardless of how tangled up life can be, regardless of the mess I've made of my own life, regardless of the reality of the snarls and the snags that we see right now in this world, this is where we're headed. This is where God is moving this world. This is where God is directing his people. On that day you will say, give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the people, proclaim that his name is exalted. So from this psalm we're going to be just looking at two phrases that I think summarize a lot of what we've been saying through this entire series, Untangling Christmas. And that phrase, first of all, is that God is my salvation. This comes up twice in the text. And then the second, with joy you will draw waters from the wells of salvation. So God is my salvation. Notice that. That's a fascinating phrase. God is my salvation. It comes up twice. And the word for salvation, you probably have heard it before, it's the word Yeshua. Amazing, isn't it? Yes. So the name Yeshua is actually the name of Jesus in the Hebrew. It's also Hosea and Joshua and Hosea are all the same. Basically God is, the Lord is my salvation. Yeshua. God saves. And the word means deliverance and help. It can mean prosperity in the sense of God giving us bounty and beauty in life and connections. Salvation, security, victory. Now one of the earliest occurrences of this word, actually I think Isaiah, when he was writing this song of praise, had it in mind, occurs at Exodus chapter 15. And this is right when the children of Israel have walked through the Red Sea. God parted the Red Sea. They walked on dry land. They get to the other side. And then the entire Egyptian army is destroyed and drowned in that sea. And then it says, Moses and the people of God gathered together and sang a song. And often, I don't know if you realize this, songs, music, are part of the joy, the celebration. What party doesn't have music, right? What celebration doesn't use music? And when it's spontaneous and it's just amazing how we want to break out into song, we sing of God's salvation like the children of Israel did. And so these words, Exodus 15, it says, I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider he's thrown into the sea. Notice these words here, very similar to Isaiah, the Lord is my strength and my song and has become my salvation. So Exodus, the whole story of how God saved his people, brought them from slavery to freedom, how God met with his people, stayed with his people, walked with his people, and delivered his people into the promised land. That story of Exodus is foundational to Isaiah and all of the prophets. They look back at that story and say, what God did there, he's going to do again. And he is going to bring it to completion. In that day, you will say, give thanks to the Lord, call on his name. Now, you might go like, wow, that sounds so positive. It's so wonderful. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you though, at the same time, the Bible is not optimistic. It's neither pessimistic, it's realistic. The Bible is not optimistic about human nature. It's not optimistic and looking kind of through rose-colored glasses at the children of Israel, how wonderful they were in Egypt, or how wonderful they followed God. That's not what the Bible does. And the Bible is not, as we have talked about the whole idea of untangling Christmas, God came into this world because it was a tangled mess. Isaiah's time was a mess. It was a disaster. It was all sorts of chaos going on. They were wondering whether they were going to live or die. They were wondering as a people if they were going to be around anymore or not. The Bible's not optimistic about human nature. It doesn't try to excuse or rationalize or justify why people do what they d...