The joy of salvation

we've been looking in our Christmas se series here some of the the popular themes um from the Christmas season that you often see. And so a couple weeks ago we took a look at Isaiah 9. For unto us a child is born. Um this famous passage uh and the government shall rest upon his shoulder. His name will be called you know wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father. and and what we saw through that is just this this expectancy and creation of hope that began to generate from this passage uh this promise and and and thematically actually for now we've we've been journeying really progressionally through Isaiah. So then last week we took a late look at Isaiah 11 and and in that we saw not only this promise of this coming birth of a child but this reign of a king and what he would establish. And what we saw is just this incredible peace, this incredible presence of God that orders the world rightly that makes everything whole in such a an unbelievable kind of way. It it was the salvation of God that had come. And this week as we move into chapter 12, what we're really going to be looking is at a people that are responding to that salvation. you know, as as we read it in just a moment, we're going to to sense and see the the response to God's salvation where there's a sense of just jubilant joy, explosive, as it's just filling these people's lives with so much of God's joy and thanksgiving over his salvation. And so, let's take a look at it today. Um, Isaiah 12 is where I'm going to be reading from. I'm going to be reading the entire chapter, which is only six verses. So Isaiah 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 I will not be afraid. For the Lord God is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. with joy you will 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 may be made known in all the earth. Shout and sing for joy, oh inhabitants of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. This is God's word. So we see right here at the beginning of this passage is really just ultimately people responding to the joy of God's salvation operating in their life. God has has done something great and majestic in their lives and everything out of that begins to become this expression of thanksgiving and praise and glory to what God has done. And we see it starting there throughout chapter 11 and now moving into this response of chapter 12. But you know in our world today we often get joy all wrong. We look at joy as the end in itself. the thing that we need that will satisfy these cravings and desires, the deep desires and longings within our heart. And so we reach out and make life's pursuit about satisfying those desires. And joy will be the thing that will satisfy those things. And so that's the end in itself. Years ago, I was sitting with a man and he was sort of at a crisis moment in his life. And he was sort of recounting what had happened in his life that led up to this point in time as he was processing aloud. A and and what had happened in the course of this life is you know he grew up and he wanted to uh to have the kind of career that he could be proud of. He wanted to to succeed and to have a status and uh and a success in his life. and it and and in a way he he he began to climb the corporate ladder and to achieve and to succeed. But something about that it he got there but it wasn't enough. He he needed something else. And so he thought, you know, I I need love. I need I need the girl. I need the girl. And so he went and he sought and he found the girl and he got married. And and yet it wasn't it's like he was still trying to build this picture in his life. And so it was kids and he and then they had kids, you know, and and and so that that began to happen in his life. He was a guy that loved toys, loved gadgets, and and so he had he had the car, he had the boat, he had the camper, he had the house, he had the tech, he had all of those things in his life. And yet it still wasn't enough. And here he was, he was depressed. So much so that he was taking medication for it at this point in time. He was uh contemplating choices in his life that were going to be destructive. Uh everything in his life was unhappy. He had reached for joy. He had made joy the thing that he needed so bad. And he looked to all of these things to give him that joy to satisfy the deep cravings of his heart. And it wasn't enough. And he chased from one thing to the next thing to the next thing until he would reach this moment in his life of crisis where he was at break point just falling apart and not knowing what to seek out next. What to how to to reconcile the very much lack of joy that he had in his heart. We get joy all wrong because we make joy in in itself. But really ultimately the only thing the source of all joy because joy points to something. It's it's not a destination. It's a signpost. It ultimately points to the source of that joy. It points to God. It points to God and his salvation because he's the one that only can satisfy the deepest longings of his heart. In him are pleasures ever more. The scripture says in him is the fountain head of all joy. He is the one. His act, his movement, his his kindness, all the things that he graces on our life, they produce joy. But God is the fountain head of those things, not joy itself. And yet in life, we are so content often times like this man to to to seek out joy as the end in itself. We are satisfied with small and even trivial pleasures in this life that cannot fulfill the deepest longing. CS Lewis said it like this. We are like children who are satisfied making mud pies when we could have a holiday at the sea. In today's tongue, it would be you could have a vacation at Disney World. You know, it would be like that sort of thing. But we get joy wrong. And today we're going to be looking at so how do we get joy right? How do we understand and rightly look beyond joy itself to the source of joy and experience a joy that is grounded, that is sustaining, and that is overflowing. And that's what we're going to really look at today is is joy being grounded, sustaining, and expanding as we look at this passage today. The first piece right here is this grounding. Joy points to God and to his salvation. Joy points to God and his salvation. Verse one here, you see, you will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, oh Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger has turned away from me that you might comfort me. These people were experiencing really the result of their own failure, their own turning from God, which led to exile, which led to bondage, which led to death, captivity, all the results that sin brings in our life. It alienates us from the source of life, God himself. They had lost that. And what had happened here is that God moved first and began to restore, began to lead them back. He raised up in chapter 11, he raised up his servant who would who would call the nations and his people back to himself that would begin to do this salvation work in their lives. And his posture towards them is no longer one of punishment and anger. He is reconciling himself to them. He is healing the rift and the rebellion, calling them back to himself. And in him is that joy and in that salvation. And they are that's the response there is give thanks to you Lord. Why? Because ultimately because he's turned his anger away because he's sought them out because he's saved them and is drawing them back into his presence. Joy is found in God. years ago uh hundred years ago there was a man named Victor Frankle. Victor Frankle was uh famous. He he wrote the book Man's Search for Meaning. Um he was a psychiatrist from Austria and and one of the things that Victor Frankle did and it was it was kind of groundbreaking in some ways is he looked at the idea of joy and he said he'd been he'd been a survivor of the Holocaust and he knew joy can't be an end in itself. It's not enough. It has to be rooted in something because going through the Holocaust there was no way to find joy. I mean you're in this prison like he he thought I can't find it. And so he he sort of he processed his experience and he said joy can't be an end in itself. And this really contradicted so much of what um what even Freud had said at the time. He realized it needed a source. Now the way that he got it because he wasn't a believer is he said it's it's grounded in meaning that we can find purpose and identity and meaning in things in life whether it's as a parent or whether it's you know there was a guy that was a scientist and he thought my purpose in life is to like discover and do this this work in physics and and that will that achievement will give me meaning and joy and there was joy in that but that's not really much different than this guy at the beginning that I talked to it. Meaning can be lost. What happens when you achieve it and it's not enough? What happens if the things that you've invested and said this will give me joy and then it's not there or it doesn't respond with the love? The the girl doesn't return the love that you were looking for. The family that you found meaning in is gone. What do you do then? Even beyond those things, the Bible tells us every good and perfect gift comes from above. Those things are gifts from God. They point beyond themsel to a source to the giftgiver. And in him, in fellowship with him, in life abounding with him is salvation, is healing for our soul. And in that, what is it? We respond with joy, with thanksgiving, with gladness. That's what we find here is that meaning is ultimately found in God, not even in the things around us in this world. In God and what he says about you and who you are and what he's created you in his image. These are the sources that begin to to bubble up something within our own heart. Our deepest longings are fulfilled and found in God. See, joy is a response to God and to his salvation. Why why is is that something? Well, let's just think about salvation for just a second. Salvation number one is a rescue. It's a rescue from something. You know, it it's a it's an act that begins to pull you out like these people here and save them and heal them from bondage, from exile, from no longer being the people of God in some ways, right? They they had lost their identity as a nation of people. And so it is in our own life before that act of God. We begin to find that in our own life we are in bondage. We are in sin. Our relationship with God is awesome or is it severed? Are we enemies of God prior to that? Yes. That's how scripture describes it. Does the wrath of God dwell upon us? Yes, it does. And so our posture and stance and relationship with God is suffering. We are suffering. And if you can, I don't know, everybody's got different experiences, but if you can just rewind the clock in your life, or if you can even just ponder right now, where would you be if God had not come and rescued you? Who would you be? What would your life look like? How would you feel? And I can even in my own life think about places of darkness and deep sorrow, shame. And God came and he rescued and he entered into my life. And so it goes with you and I. God enters into the story of our life and begins to rescue. But it's not just pulling us out of something. It's bringing us into something, right? It's not like the alcoholic doesn't just stop drinking because their life is still empty. They need to be filled with something else as well that that fills those deep longings and cravings and hole within our spirit. It's not just to empty and clean the house, but to be filled with God himself as well. And that's the thing here is that God not only rescues us, but he restores his salvation once again through Christ, through what Christ has done. We find in Romans uh Romans 5 2-1 uh we see some of this right here. So Romans 5 and uh we see in verse two it says through him Jesus that is we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. So Christ has brought us and obtained access for us to be in fellowship with God. And then in verse 11 it says, 'We also what? Rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ because what he accomplished and did through whom we have now received what? Reconciliation that our fellowship with God and our knowing him and walking with him is restored and and through that we begin to experience life, joy. I remember in my own life, God delivering me of a of a sin and bondage 25 years ago that that brought so much shame and failure and sorrow into my life. And when he stepped in in that moment, it changed everything. And so it is for us. We begin to experience the reality and the restoration and the life and the abounding and the joy that is in God. That's what these people they were in captivity and God has delivered them. And so joy ultimately is not is not an end in itself. God is the source of it all and our response always to him. We sing these songs. We proclaim these things. We say these things. We believe. We hold fast to these things because of what God has done. The second thing is though is that because because joy in this world, you can find joy in other things. but they won't last. And like that guy, you'll keep chasing one thing to the next, looking for that next high, that next fix. But God can sustain our joy. He can allow us to drink deeply and joyfully from the wells of salvation. And so we see here that that sustaining the sustaining element, joy is sustained by salvation. Joy doesn't rely on circumstances. Joy relies on what God has done and the faith which we hold fast to in that. Jesus even reminds us in Hebrews uh 12:2 he says that for the joy set before him he endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. That Jesus saw beyond his current circumstances. Saw beyond that moment and still could have joy in that. You find it even it's not going to be here on your screen in 2 Corinthians chapter 6:10 Paul is talking he's listing all these things and he says sorrowful yet always rejoicing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing yet possessing all things circumstances do not dictate your joy circumstances do not dictate your joy because we look beyond the current moments of life to the things that God has done and will do and that should inform us that should sustain sustain us even even right here if if you look here at at chapter at verse two in our passage it says that behold God is my salvation so God has become the salvation he has acted he acted this promise was talked about he's going to do these things in chapter 11 God has saved and then we turn and we believe that he did he offered this and I trusted it and I leaned into it and I received it and I accepted it in my life. And and what's it say right there coming out of that? It says, "I will trust and I won't be afraid." And so there's an element right here of trusting which we sometimes call faith. I believe what he has done. I believe thee is my salvation. And through that trust, we find that the for the Lord God is my strength and my song. We sing to him. We rejoice in him. We believe and hold fast to that salvation. We are it activates our life and then we look because why? He has become my salvation. It's like salvation works. It bursts faith in us and that faith looks back at what it looks at the salvation God has done. But it also looks forward at the salvation that God will do. Because we live in the in between time of life where God has done, he has saved us, but he also will finish that process of salvation fully in that coming day in a new heaven and in a new earth. And when we find ourselves in the present circumstances in between those two realities, we can still have joy because God acted not just not not just in Christ and in this theory way back there 2,000 years ago, but in your life. in your life. He drew you to himself and not just through that one moment, that one time, but it can you continue to experience the benefits and the reality of that salvation. His mercies are new every morning. His faithfulness is great. And we know of God's love. And that faith that is birthed in our heart constantly looks at the activity and the salvation of God that he has done, that he is doing, and that he will do. And even in the midst of circumstances, we go, I don't know what's going on, and my present reality is not a good situation, but I can look beyond that because I know what God is going to do. I know what he has done, and I know what he will do. And even though right now I feels like I don't have a reason to rejoice, I do. because I know it is coming. Joy is a response to that salvation. Um, and joy is I I'll tell maybe just this quick story because I want to give an example of this, but uh many years ago I knew a woman and she was in stage four cancer. she was nearing the end of her life and uh and and she knew that it was coming and I was having a quick conversation with her um just you know as she was processing life, processing her mortality, processing what was coming and uh and she could have had much sorrow and much gloom in her life and uh and yet she didn't. She had incredible hope. And I remember as she was processing in this, she actually quoted to me Psalm 16:8. And I thought this was just such a a snapshot of her faith where she said, "I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I will not be shaken." And even as she approached death, she knew she had a salvation. she knew she was a child of God. She knew the promises of God. And she was not shaken. She was hopeful and she was joyous even in that moment that even the moment of sorrow and present circumstances that seemed so dark and gloomy, she held fast to something that gave her a reason to rejoice and a reason to hope. So joy is sustained. And how is it sustained? Because sometimes your circumstances can loom larger than than maybe the joy that you believe in or the salvation that you believe in. Do you hear that? Like sometimes your present circumstances loom large and these promises of God seem so small, so distant in your life. And I don't know, I don't know where you're at in your life. Maybe you'll find yourself one day there or maybe you're there now. But think about that. Sometimes in the it's so hard to see the good. It's so hard to see the promises of God when you're hurting, when sorrow and circumstances of life weigh heavy on you. And one of the things in life that helps helps sort of because this is like the roller coaster of life, we can go up and down. So, what adds constancy to that? What anchors your joy in that? Well, certainly it's in the promises of God. Certainly, it's in his salvation. But when that begins to grow small in your life, this is where it's so helpful just to turn to the disciplines, the these things that that inform our salvation that allow us to experience God's presence and his love and his power and his joy in our life. And often times, this is why in our lives, we build in these devotional times. for example, like reading scripture where it reminds you of the truths and the promises of God. Regardless of circumstances, it speaks to those. It reminds you of all these times other saints of old have experienced just as many bad things as you have. Even Christ himself and yet through that could look beyond the cross or people that could look beyond their current circumstances to God's salvation that was coming. and and the same it's not that the Bible reading is some sort of magic formula. It's not that that that prayer is some magic formula, but these things help anchor and root and remind you of God's truth in your life. And and even beyond just those things, fellowship, fellowship is a part of of of of how we're formed. It's a it's a discipline in our life. incorporating accountability and good people, the other believers in your life around you who will speak God's truth to you when you can't see it for yourself or sometimes solitude that just sort of creates space for our life for God to speak God to to his presence to come into our life. And if you just fill that void with Instagram or with other things instead of just creating pockets to just be with God, then you do not position yourself well, to be fed and fueled in your joy, to be reminded of the truths of God, to let those things create a bubbling up in your soul. Joy is sustained by things like that, by building those things into your life, by practicing those things. They're they're not the end in themselves. Even those though, they point to God. They're not a formula that you check the box. God is the goal. And these are just graces that as we travel along, sometimes the Lord will speak through those things. And it's a lot easier most of the time for him to speak in those spaces and in those ways that we're formed than through social media or what other things that Monday Night Football or whatever it is. Not to say God couldn't speak through those, but create space for him. Create space for him to loom large in your life so that your joy can be sustained, can be reinvigorated. Because true joy doesn't fizzle. It weathers what's hard and it deepens it. It matures it. It grows it. And eventually when you walk out of those seasons and you begin to the reality of your current circumstances is not so sorrowful, your joy begins to overflow because it's put down deep roots. And just like a plant that has has weathered the desert and has weathered the drought, when the spring comes and when the circumstances aren't so aid and hard, it just it blossoms. it overflows. And so we find here that that's what's happening in the life of these people. They are bursting with excitement. They are bursting with God's joy, God's life, God's praises. They shout to him. And so we see it throughout this passage here that joy is expanding. Joy ultimately overflows and shares God's salvation. It shares it. And why does it share it? Why does joy have to share God's salvation? Well, anytime you have good news, anytime something good enters your life, we just naturally as humans want to invite others into it. You know, those moments where where something great happens, you're like, "Did you see that? Did you you know, we want to experience it together or or if you have something even just in silly word silly cases like you experience the best tacos in town, well, you you don't keep that secret to yourself, right? If you have a place that has the best tacos in town, that's that's a place where you invite a friend to go get lunch with you. That's a place where you tell other people that are looking for good tacos where they should go and find the best tacos in town. And so it goes with life is that we naturally want to share and overflow the good things that we experience in this life. And you know why? Because it it it's like it's like when you love something and then that person reciprocates and responds and receives your love, what does it do? It grows. It expands. And so it is with joy. When you go, "Did you see that? Do you believe this? Let me tell you about this thing." And and they're like, "I can't believe it." And what happens? The excitement just multiplied. It just doubled. And there is something about joy that wants to overflow. It wants to make itself known. It wants to grow because there's great joy in rejoicing in that overflow. When somebody you share the gospel with somebody and they come to faith and you see their life change and everything about it becoming different, I mean, are you just like, "Well, that man, praise God, that's good." No, it grows. Their joy just multiplied, but your joy just multiplied. And so God is more and more exalted through that. I hope that's not heady. I hope that makes sense that how joy wants to and that's what these people are calling us to do throughout here and and and uh in this is that they praise God that that joy overflows. It's an expression and response to God's salvation. Praise makes known. So let's look at verse four here. And it says uh verse four says, "And you will say in that day, give thanks to the Lord. Call upon his name. I think it's the four lines. There we go. Give thanks to the Lord. Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among his people. Let's just look at that for just a second. So, so this word give thanks and this word make known. This is a really cool. So, I've told you about this Hebrew can have such a a range of meaning and and this is the same word just conjugated differently. Give thanks and make known. There's something about about the the the idea of giving thanks to God, praising God, giving up to him our joy and our our excitement that also wants to make known the idea of yada in Hebrew can have all of these. It can have this idea to to to confess, right? It can have the idea to make known. It can have the idea to give thanks. And this is this is just a real cool geek out for just a second here. So yada, right? That's the word. So the word for hand is yad, which is which is a root. So you have this sort of etmology of words. And if you really think about the hand, it can also mean to to to sort of make known how you doing, right? It can it can confess. I put my hand on the Bible. I confess. I confess. It can give thanks. Give thanks. And something about the the travel of how the hand oftentimes is an extension of that communication of yada to give thanks, to make known. And so it is with God's joy that it bubbles up. And anyway, just a a a geekout moment for me of the Hebrew there of of confessing and giving thanks and praising God. And ultimately, you even see this sometimes in worship, right? Why in the world do people put their hand up? Can't they just sing words? And I'm not saying you have to be a hand raiser. That's that's fine. Everybody's got different comfort levels. That's okay, right? All know I'm a hand raiser. And so, but but there is something sometimes we're we just want to, you know, something wants to respond and overflow in our life. And it should whether it be like that we not to say you have to jump in worship. Our worship is all kind of ways that it overflows. It's not just in singing. It we go out into the world and there's the overflow. We ought to carry God's joy and God's life and God's message and we ought to want to share it because it's so good in our own heart. It's so good that it bubbles up in our own soul. And so we see right here, give thanks, make known, proclaim that his name is exalted. You see the progression here? It wants to make known. And what does it do? It then it sings which is just an expression. Song is one of the ways that we make God's name known. But there's a bubbling over that begins to take place in these people. Three ways and there's many others. But there's three ways I think the joy overflows. We see one make known which is really to teach and to talk about God's salvation to tell of Jesus. just the gospel itself, the message of what God has done, the things that help connect the dots in people's lives, that help answer their objections and all those things to just reveal who God is. And there are a lot of people in this world who don't know that message. They either know a false message or a partial message or pieces of it, but they don't know the message of the gospel. Often times, people know a message of self-works. I'll come to God when I get my life right. Or some people know the like try on version of Christianity. Well, maybe I'll give it a shot, which won't fill your life with joy. You don't get to try on God. You give your whole life to him. And so, there's all sorts of ways that we make known. We also proclaim and we testify. You know, this is the easiest way is just the overflow of my own life. I once was blind, but now I see. I once was lost, but now I'm found. And so joy in itself right here begins to proclaim and overflow even into that. I I remember when I first experienced deliverance from from bondage in my own life, I just wanted to tell everybody about what had happened like like this mess that my life was in and what God had done. And even people could see it. I mean, I it was very obvious that I was a different person because my life was in so much darkness. People be like, "What happened to you?" you. I mean, people could people that were near me knew something had happened. And I just wanted to tell everybody about it. But over time, we can lose that. We ought not lose it. Find ways to stir that back up in your life. Find ways for that constancy to be reinvigorated, to be deepened, to put down those roots in God, to remember the joy of your salvation. Third way here is that we see that we sing and we shout and we cry out and we sing praises. And you've heard me say this before. One of the beauties of corporate worship is that we proclaim the truths of God to one another, but also to God. You hear your brother and sister sing things about God, who he is, about his love, about his salvation. And it should remind you. You're not saying it by yourself, but your brother and your sister beside you were saying it, too. And we sing it together. And I love sometimes just to like stop for a second and I'll just hear I hear you singing. I hear you guys saying these things and it's beautiful and it's encouraging to my own soul. So joy is not bottled up. It's not a sponge that just wants to soak up for itself. It wants to share. It wants to celebrate. and wants to invite others into this good thing. And so we see with these people here that God makes his name. It says in verse five, "Sing praises to the Lord." It's not going to be up here. Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously. Let this be made known in all the earth. Shout and sing for joy, oh inhabitants of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. God is making his name known, his salvation known to the ends of the earth. And he is inviting us to be living examples and witnesses of it. And joy, guys, is our secret weapon. It's our secret weapon. It's the church's secret weapon because the world can't give you joy like God gives you. And all the joys that people experience, we can tell them there is a deeper source. Those kinds of joys and pleasures can be taken, but not God's. It weathers, it believes, it hopes, it sustains all of the circumstances of life. If you've been seeking joy as your end, as your end all, as the be all that fills your life, it won't end well. Seek God in instead. Seek his salvation. Let him fill you with his authentic joy. If joy is small and fleeting in your life, re-anchor it in God. Remind yourself of the great gift that he has given you and the great gifts that he continues to give you. Receive those. Celebrate those. Sing of those. Don't let life steal your joy. See beyond your current circumstances. see beyond the hard things. Even if you share with people and they reject that joy, they don't believe that joy, they don't want to share in that joy. It's okay. That's not the source of your joy. Not even them. God is. So don't let people steal it. And you'll find there will be days where you will share it and it's reciprocated and enjoyed and it will produce great joy in your life, in my life, in our lives. And that is our prayer even as a church that we see people come and we make known individually but even corporately these truths and we see joy overflow in our midst. Not our own salvation and joy but celebrating it in the lives of one another as well. So joy is our strength in a world seeking false joys. We have the joy that meets our deepest desires. Is the joy of the Lord your strength?