Isaiah 12:1-6 – In that day you will sing: “I will praise you, O Lord! You were angry with me, but not any more. Now you comfort me. 2 See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord God is my strength and my song; he has given me victory.” 3 With joy you will drink deeply from the fountain of salvation! 4 In that wonderful day you will sing: “Thank the Lord! Praise his name! Tell the nations what he has done. Let them know how mighty he is! Sing to the Lord, for he has done wonderful things.   6 Make known his praise around the world. Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy! For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.”

Not only should we praise Him because He is our salvation and strength but also our:

• Song

When God brought the universe into existence, Job 38 says: “The morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy” In Exodus 15 when God brought the Children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, his people sang: “Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord “I will sing to the Lord,     for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.” One day when this world has wound down and God’s plan of redemption comes to a close, we will gathered before Him and sing the song of the Lamb, Revelation 15: “They held harps given them by God 3 and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” You were saved to sing and it is the Savior that puts the song in your souls. Verse six calls us to raise a ruckus, to shout our song of praise till it reverberates around the world, “Make known his praise around the world. Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy! For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.” Our praise should penetrate this planet; it should sound throughout the world. Have you ever noticed that the shouting side is the winning side? When there is a contest you can recognize the side that has the upper hand by their enthusiastic praise, because they are winning their supporters are singing. The question is which side are you on? The victorious or the lost, are you on the defeated side with the devil or part of the party of praise because you placed your faith in Jesus Christ? If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ then its time to voice the victory, we are on the winning team not the whining one. In verse 2 we are told: “The Lord God is my strength and my song; he has given me victory.” Only the Savior can put a song in your soul, and how do you know if your song is from the Savior? What are you singing about, your success or His?  Does the song of your soul point to self or the Savior? What do you want people to recognized, your results or the Redeemers?  Isaiah calls us to “Thank the Lord! Praise his name! Tell the nations what he has done. Let them know how mighty he is! Sing to the Lord, for he has done wonderful things. Make known his praise around the world. Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy! For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.” It’s about His ways and His work, don’t waste your breath on worry when you could be worshipping. Are you praising your problems or your provider? We were made for a mission, we have a ministry, its time to rise up and rejoice, to voice the victory, to join in the chant of celebration, and participate in the parade of praise. That is what is missing in many of our lives today. We act like we are losers instead of the Lord’s loved. Does your life song sing of God’s greatness?  Pastor Shadrach Meshach Lockeridge was born in 1913 and died in 2000, He was the pastor of Calvary Baptist where his ministry reached more than 100,000 people. He preached at crusades, revivals, religious rallies and evangelistic conferences all around the world. But do you know what he is best known for? His shortest sermon, a six and a half minute description of Jesus Christ, known as “That’s my King!” Today take time to soak in his song about his Savior because in the end it is all about Jesus:

-“No means of measure can define his limitless love. . .

-No barrier can hinder him from pouring out his blessing.

-He’s enduringly strong and he’s entirely sincere.

-He’s eternally steadfast and he’s immortally graceful.

-He’s imperially powerful and he’s impartially merciful.

He’s God’s Son.

-He’s the sinner’s Savior; He’s the centerpiece of civilization.

-He supplies strength for the weak. . .

-He’s available for the tempted and the tried.

-He sympathizes and he sees.

-He guards and he guides. . .

-He’s the key to knowledge.

-He’s the wellspring of wisdom.

-He’s the doorway of deliverance.

-He’s the pathway of peace,

-He’s the roadway of righteousness,

-He’s the highway of holiness,

-He’s the gateway to glory. . .

-He’s the master of the mighty,

-He’s the captain of the conquerors,

-He’s the head of heroes, He’s the leader of the legislators,

-He’s the governor of the governors,

-He’s the Prince of princes, He’s the King of kings, He’s the Lord of lords.

His promise is sure.

-His life is matchless.

-His goodness is limitless.

-His mercy is everlasting.

-His love never changes.

-His word is enough.

-His grace is sufficient.

-His reign is righteous.

-His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

It’s easy to let His song be swallowed up by the sorrow from the storms of this life, to lose focus and forget how great a Savior we serve. Today, are you rejoicing in your relationship with Jesus? Will your life be one of singing or sighing?

Isaiah 12:1-6 – In that day you will sing: “I will praise you, O Lord! You were angry with me, but not any more. Now you comfort me. 2 See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord God is my strength and my song; he has given me victory.” 3 With joy you will drink deeply from the fountain of salvation! 4 In that wonderful day you will sing: “Thank the Lord! Praise his name! Tell the nations what he has done. Let them know how mighty he is! Sing to the Lord, for he has done wonderful things.   6 Make known his praise around the world. Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy! For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.”

After calling us to praise God for Salvation Isaiah now calls us to praise Him for He is our:

• Strength

As verse 2 says, “The Lord God is my strength.” In your life have you ever been weak and in need of strength? Think of the last time you lost your strength and were weak, what was the result? Like me in that moment you needed help. We may know that we are weak but here is the question, is the way that we are living really reflecting this reality? Are we admitting our weakness and our need for strength? Many of us live more in defiance of this truth than in dependence on Jesus because of it. We know we need strength but we don’t submit to the reality of what we know. Today we have replaced trusting in the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with trying through the trinity of self, Me, Myself and I. We have rewritten Philippians 4:13 to read: “I can do all things through ME that gives Myself strength” We have substituted the Savior for self. I don’t need to convince you that you need strength from an outside source because you and I both know your strength isn’t cutting it. The question is are you ready to submit to the truth and turn to the Father or keep faking? For others the issue is not that we are resisting the reality that we need strength. We know and we have submitted to the truth that we need strength, it’s just that we have submitted to substitute strength instead of the Saviors. The question we never thought through was where are we going to look for this strength? Am I going to lean on the Saviors strength or substitutes? One of the biggest substitutes to the Savior strength that we turn to today is money. Instead of leaning on God we lean on gold.  Why does the world frantically strive for financial stability, because it is their source of strength. Why are they always scrambling, because their substitute strength is fleeting, its foundation is not firm.  Gold is a gift given not to remove God but to remind us of His goodness. Why did Jesus spent so much time talking about money, because He knew that many would waste their lives chasing cash. Today many are living like moths drawn to the flame, choosing to circle the financial glow instead of God, only to get consumed by the cash instead of Christ.  Why do we skate around on the thin ice of treasures, why do we spend our lives on the shifting sands of riches because we have bought and believed the lie that we can lean and rely on our riches. S. D. Gordon said “Money supplies a channel through which one may reach most intimately to others, near by and around the world. It is the golden channel of service.” The problem is that today that we are grabbing for the gold instead of God. We have turned the treasure from being a tool of service into substitute strength for self. We’ve turned from trusting in God to trusting in our treasure. But my greatest resource is not my riches, it is my relationship with the Redeemer. Money may make some things easier but money is never not enough. It will always be a substitute strength that comes up short, only Jesus is enough. You see your soul will never find strength in a substitute. For some of us we are not turning to an outside substitute, we are rely on one closer to home, the substitute of self. We choose to parade around in our own power but eventually it will be revealed for what it is, pathetic. Our physical bodies have one destination, death. Physically I’m not getting more powerful I’m getting more puny, and my power is anemic compared to the Almighty. We don’t just try to rest in the strength of our muscles but also in our mind, but just like our physical strength we also lose our minds. There is a story told about an elderly Christian lady whose age began to take a terrible toll on her memory. She once knew much of the Bible by heart, but eventually only one part of one precious verse stayed with her. It was part of 2 Timothy 1:12, where Paul said: “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” Yet as time went on, even that brief portion of Scripture began to slip away. In her last days as she hovered near death, her loved ones noticed her lips moving. They bent down to see if she needed anything. And they heard her saying over and over the one word she remembered from the Bible: “Him, Him, Him.” She had lost most of her mental abilities, but she never lost Him. When it’s all stripped away what do you really have? Today I pray that God in His grace will give us the gift of stripping us of our substitute strengths so that all we have is Him. It’s a scary prayer and seemingly sour at first as we lose our substitute source of strength, but oh so sweet when we find the Saviors. You see your source of strength will become your well of worship, its where your focus and faith will be found. Finances or the Father, self or the Savior what are you worshipping, the One who is worthy or that which is worthless? For the financial fool it’s a prayer for God to break the bank so that we stop leaning on the lies and start leaning on the Lord. What do you care more about being bankrupted financially or broke biblically? What about the impact that this prayer has on the substitute of self? Stripping self may mean stripping our strength physically, but what’s more important health or holiness? Paul got the gift of God’s grace when in 2 Corinthians 12:9 he wrote, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Why is strength such a big deal because it gives us a sense of security. The problem is that many of us are focused on a false and fleeting sense of security instead of the steadfast strength of the Savior. Today are you resting and rejoicing in the joy of His strength or the junk of substitute strength?